Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 419
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic administrative tablet from the Umma region of southern Iraq, probably dating to around 2500–2350 BCE, recording small silver disbursements and purchase prices alongside a livestock entry. A series of named individuals — Dingir-lu-mah, Ur-Pu-sag, Di-Utu, Lugal-ezem, Ur-sag-Utu, and others — each received measured amounts of silver in shekels; a separate entry credits 4⅓ shekels to an official named Ab-ba-tur. The precise fractional amounts (half-shekels, third-shekels) reflect the careful institutional accounting of a Sumerian city-state economy. A diagonal crack across the face of the tablet has destroyed several entries, but enough survives to show the everyday paperwork of Early Dynastic silver transactions and the named people who carried them out.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Half a shekel of refined silver was disbursed through Ba-NI. Lugal-ezem received one male sheep; another entry records a one-shekel silver payment to a person whose name is now broken. Several two-shekel payments were made as purchase prices to Dingir-lu-mah, to Ur-Pu-sag, and jointly to Di-Utu and Lugal-ezem; a smaller third-of-a-shekel purchase is credited to Ur-sag-Utu. The next few lines are too damaged to read. Ab-ba-tur's entry stands at 4⅓ shekels of silver. Two goats close the account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine½ shekel of refined silver — [disbursed:] Ba-NI 1 male sheep — Lugal-ezem 1 shekel: Lu-x-[...] 2 shekels — silver, purchase price: [name broken] 2 shekels — silver, purchase price: Dingir-lu-mah 2 shekels — silver, purchase price: Ur-Pu-sag 2 shekels — silver, purchase price: Di-Utu and Lugal-ezem ⅓ shekel — silver, purchase price: Ur-sag-Utu [n] shekels silver [...] [...two signs illegible...] 4⅓ shekels silver — Ab-ba-tur 2 goats
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. 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
1/2(asz@c) ku3-luh gin2 ba-NI 1(asz@c) udu-nita lugal-ezem 1(asz@c) gin2 lu2-x-[...] 2(asz@c@90) ku3 sa10# gin2 2(asz@c@90) ku3 sa10# gin2 dingir-lu2-mah2#! 2(asz@c@90)# ku3 sa10# gin2# ur-pu2(|LAGABxTIL|)-sag 2(asz@c@90) ku3 sa10# gin2# di-utu lugal-ezem 1/3(asz@c) ku3 sa10# gin2 ur-sag-utu [n] ku3 gin2 [...] x x? 4(asz@c) 1/3(asz@c) ku3 gin2 ab-ba-tur 2(asz@c) masz2#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC) ?) — CUSAS 35, 419. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252830) — 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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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.