Position in chronology
MAD 4, 138
About this tablet
A short livestock memorandum from Umma in southern Iraq, written in Sumerian during the Akkadian empire (around 2300–2200 BCE). It notes one ram, apparently slaughtered, alongside a few goats that a herder named Utu-mugi'e brought back to the sheep-house. The closing lines book the animals as an expenditure linked to 'the king' and end with an unusual numbered dating of year and month. It is an example of the routine animal accounting kept by provincial administrators in the world's first empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One ram, possibly only one, is entered against Ur-Šara. The sheep belonging to Ur-Suen was slaughtered. Two billy-goats and one nanny-goat were returned to the sheep-house by Utu-mugi'e. The whole entry is booked as sheep withdrawn from stock, apparently on the king's account. The final line gives a date: a figure of 22 (probably a count of years), and the ninth month, written as 'ten minus one'.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse(?) 1. 1(?) ram, 2. Ur-Šara; 3. [the sheep] of Ur-Suen 4. was slaughtered. 5. 2 billy-goats, 6. 1 nanny-goat: 7. to the sheep-house 8. Utu-mugi'e 9. returned (them). 10. Sheep expended, 11. by the king(?). 12. 22 (years?); year … ; month 10 minus 1 (= 9th month).
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(disz)? udu-nita ur-szara2 [udu] ur-suen ba-szum 2(asz@c) masz2-nita 1(asz@c) ud5 ga2 udu-ka utu-mu-gi4-e bi2-gi4 udu zi-ga lugal-e 2(u) 2(disz@t) mu 1(u) la2 1(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 138. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215298) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.