Position in chronology
MVN 03, 066
About this tablet
This is a small round clay tablet from the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2600–2350 BCE), a type common in early Mesopotamian archives for recording livestock. It tallies large flocks of sheep — ewes, a category called e3-li, and rams — that were handed over to a shepherd named Lala. Such 'bun-shaped' numerical tablets were part of the earliest bureaucratic record-keeping systems, tracking herds belonging to a temple or institutional household long before more elaborate cuneiform administrative formats developed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a livestock tally: 279 ewes, 16 animals of the e3-li category, and 84 rams were handed over to the shepherd Lala. In short, a flock of several hundred sheep — broken down by type — was placed in this shepherd's care, and the record notes that the animals were duly given to him.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine279 (4×60 + 40 minus 1) ewes, 16 e3-li, 84 (60 + 20 + 4) male sheep (rams), [...] Lala, to the shepherd — were given.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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
4(gesz2@c) 4(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) u8 1(u@c) 6(asz@c) e3-li 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) udu-nita [(x)] la-la sipa-ra an-na-szum2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — MVN 03, 066. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P215719) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.