Position in chronology
OSP 1, 130
About this tablet
A fragmentary account tablet from Early Dynastic Nippur, in southern Iraq, roughly 2500–2350 BCE. It records prices in silver: an ox valued at a third of a mina, a sheep at five shekels, and a fine aktum-garment at a third of a mina plus four shekels — with the same entries then repeated, suggesting a running ledger of purchases or valuations. Tablets like this show silver already functioning as a standard of value in Sumerian commerce a thousand years before coined money existed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a price list, entered twice over. An ox costs one-third of a mina of silver (about 20 shekels, roughly 165 grams). A sheep costs five shekels. A fine aktum cloth garment costs one-third of a mina plus four more shekels — more than the ox. A damaged line follows, perhaps naming another item. Then the entries repeat: an ox at a third of a mina, a sheep at a now-lost number of shekels, and again a third of a mina and four shekels, presumably for another garment. The rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [One-third (of a mina) of silver] — šana — it is (the price) of an ox. 5 shekels of silver — it is (the price) of a sheep. One-third (of a mina) of silver — šana — (and) 4 shekels: it is (the price) of an aktum-[garment]. [...]-tum(?) One-third (of a mina) of silver — šana — it is (the price) of an ox. [x] shekels of silver — it is (the price) of a sheep. [One-third (of a mina) of] silver — šana — (and) 4 shekels ... (remainder broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[1/3(asz@c) ku3] sza-na gu4-kam 5(asz@c) ku3 gin2 udu-kam 1/3(asz@c) ku3 sza-na 4(asz@c) gin2 tug2 aktum#-[kam] [...]-tum#? 1/3(asz@c) ku3 sza-na gu4-kam [x] ku3 gin2 udu-kam [1/3(asz@c) ku3] sza-na 4(asz@c) gin2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — OSP 1, 130. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P221632) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.