Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 412
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic account tablet, probably from Umma in southern Iraq, around the 24th century BCE. It lists eight work-gang leaders — Si-du, Ur-ni, Ur-Nin-ildu, Ur-sag-utu, Duga-ni-du, Ekur-nusi, Ur-ennun, and an unnamed overseer-captain — each credited with a number of units, most likely the workers under his charge or rations assigned to him. The individual figures add up exactly to the grand total of 142 written in the last line, so the scribe's arithmetic can still be checked 4,400 years later.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A muster list, by supervisor: Si-du, 13; Ur-ni, 27; the overseer/captain, 25; Ur-Nin-ildu, 20; Ur-sag-utu, 15; Duga-ni-du, 12; Ekur-nusi, 11; Ur-ennun, 19. Grand total: 142 — the commodity or category named at the end of the total line is broken away. The reverse was left blank. The numbers balance perfectly against the total, so this is a finished, checked account rather than a draft.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine13 — Si-du 27 (30 minus 3) — Ur-ni 25 — the overseer, the captain (nu-banda) 20 — Ur-Nin-ildu 15 — Ur-sag-utu 12 — Du[ga]-ni-du 11 — Ekur-nusi 19 (20 minus 1) — Ur-ennun Total: 142 [...] (sign at the end broken) (Reverse: uninscribed / surface eroded, no legible signs)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1(u@c) 3(asz@c) si#-du3# 3(u@c) la2 3(disz@t) ur2-ni 2(u@c) 5(asz@c) ugula nu-banda3 2(u@c) ur-nin-ildu3 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) ur-sag-utu 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) du11-[ga]-ni-du10 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) e2-kur#-nu-si# 2(u@c) la2 1(disz@t) ur#-en-nun# 2(gesz2) 2(u) 2(disz@t) x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC) ?) — CUSAS 35, 412. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252823) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-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.