Position in chronology
RIAA 081
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic tablet, probably from Umma in southern Iraq, listing about ten personal names — almost certainly a personnel roster or a record of individuals involved in some transaction or work assignment. One entry is preceded by the numeral '1', suggesting a head-count format. Simple lists like this are the everyday bookkeeping of the world's first bureaucracies, and the names themselves (like Ur-lumma, a name also borne by a famous ruler of Umma) tell us who was living and working in the city more than four thousand years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a roster of people: Lugal-abbamu, Ur-lumma, Dam-aba, one man named Huhuma, Dingir-gabar, E-gaba-gire, A-geštin-su, and E-gab-e. A ninth name at the bottom is too damaged to read in full, and whatever followed it is lost. There is no stated total, commodity, or date preserved — just the names themselves, the kind of head-count a foreman or scribe would jot down to track workers, recipients, or witnesses.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLugal-abbamu, Ur-lumma, Dam-aba, 1 (person): Huhuma, Dingir-gabar, E-gaba-gire, A-geštin-su, E-gab-e, [...]-hu?-mi?-[...], [... remainder broken ...]
Our translation engine — Fable 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
lugal-ab-ba-mu ur-lum-ma dam-a-ba4 1(disz) hu-hu-ma dingir-ga-bar e2-ga2-ba-gir2-e a-gesztin-su3 e2-ga2-ab-e [x x]-hu?-mi?-x [...] x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — RIAA 081. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P216420) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.