Position in chronology
OIP 014, 075
About this tablet
This small cushion-shaped tablet from Adab (mod. Bismaya) is an Early Dynastic administrative docket recording disbursements of silver, by the shekel, to a handful of named individuals — including a fisherman (šu-ku6) and a man identified as 'the Elamite' — with a closing witness clause naming Ur-eš3 as guarantor of the transaction. Texts like this are the paperwork of a temple or palace household economy roughly 4,500 years ago, tracking small silver payments the way a modern receipt book would, and the presence of a foreign-born (Elamite) recipient hints at the cosmopolitan labor and trade networks already active in southern Mesopotamia at this early date.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short payment record. An unspecified amount of silver went to a man named Šeš-aranu. Two shekels of silver went to Ur-mes the fisherman. Another two (or so) shekels went to a man called Igi-Enlil-še. A further two shekels went to Šebidani, who is identified as an Elamite. Silver was also delivered on behalf of Me-al-nudi. The transaction was witnessed and formally attested by a man named Ur-eš3.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[x shekels of silver] — for Šeš-aranu; (erased: "ur") 2 shekels of silver — (for) Ur-mes, the fisherman; 2(?) shekels of silver — for Igi-Enlil-še; 2 shekels of silver — (for) Šebidani, the Elamite; (for) Me-al-nudi — it was delivered/brought. Ur-eš3 is the man of its testimony (the witness).
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
[x ku3 gin2] szesz-[a]-ra2#-nu2 <<ur>> 2(disz@t) ku3 gin2 ur-mes szu-ku6 2(disz@t)#? ku3 gin2 [igi]-en-lil2-sze3 2(disz@t) ku3 gin2 sze3-bi-da-ni elam me-al-nu-di ba-de6 ur-esz3 lu2 ki inim-ma-bi#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — OIP 014, 075. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P222261) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.