Position in chronology
MAD 4, 149
About this tablet
A short land register from Umma in southern Iraq, written during the Old Akkadian period (about 2300–2150 BCE). It lists seven parcels of farmland by name or location, with their sizes in bur, the large Sumerian unit of field area. The total comes to 18 bur, roughly 115 hectares, credited to a woman named Ama-e, wife of Ur-Šara. If that reading of the closing lines is right, the tablet shows a woman named as the holder of a substantial agricultural estate in the Sargonic era.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists the land held by Ama-e, wife of Ur-Šara. There are 3 bur at the field called A-surdura, 4 bur at Dumuzida's field and 2 bur at the field of A-suhur(?)ra. Another 4 bur are at Ša-gal, 3 bur at Lugal-ramugi, and 2 bur next to the granary. Altogether that comes to 18 bur of farmland, written as 'twenty bur less two', or about 115 hectares.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 bur, field area: GAN₂ 2. A-surdura; 3. 4 bur, field of Dumuzida; 4. 2 bur, field of A-suhur(?)ra; 5. 4 bur: Ša-gal; 6. 3 bur: Lugal-ramugi; 7. 2 bur: beside the granary site. 8. Total: 2 bur'u minus 2 bur (= 18 bur), field area 9. of Ama-e, the wife 10. of Ur-Šara.
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
3(bur3@c) a-sza3 GAN2 a-sur2-du7-ra2 4(bur3@c) a-sza3 dumu-zi-da 2(bur3@c) a-sza3 a-suhur?-ra 4(bur3@c) sza-gal 3(bur3@c) lugal-ra-mu-gi4 2(bur3@c) da ki-guru7-ka szunigin 2(bur'u@c) la2 2(bur3@c) a-sza3 GAN2 ama-e2-dam ur-szara2-ka
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 149. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215309) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.