Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 105
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), dating roughly to 2600–2400 BCE, recording distributions of ceramic vessels to named craftsmen. Each entry pairs a quantity of jars with a recipient identified by name and occupation — a reed-worker, a stone-cutter, an otherwise unknown professional known as 'the man of HUB2-BU.' The giri3-ni formula shows that one allocation was routed through an intermediary rather than handed directly. Tablets like this are the day-to-day paperwork of an Early Dynastic workshop economy: small, lenticular, and packed with proper names that give rare glimpses of ordinary working people.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Three jars go to Ur-Nanše. Six jars go to Ur-Era, the reed-craftsman — with Šeš-tur recorded as the go-between, identified as a stone-cutter. One jar goes to the man known as HUB2-BU. A further entry is too broken to read the quantity. The last legible recipient is Lugal-alsa, who receives an unknown number of jars. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 vessels: Ur-Nanše. 6 [vessels]: Ur-Era — the reed-craftsman, Šeš-tur. Via him: the stone-cutter. 1 vessel: the man of HUB2-BU. [...] [n] vessel(s): Lugal-alsa.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(asz@c) dug ur-nansze 6(asz@c)# dug ur-erx(KISZ)-ra ad-kup4# szesz-tur giri3-ni zadim 1(asz@c) dug lu2 HUB2-BU-kam [...] [n] dug# lugal-al-sa6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CUSAS 35, 105. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252779) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.