Position in chronology
TMH 05, 008
About this tablet
A small administrative list from Nippur in the Early Dynastic period (mid-third millennium BCE), written in Sumerian. It names five men, each identified by his father, and labels them as men of the city of Šuruppak who are said to have committed 'sa-gaz' — a term that later means banditry or robbery. A final name, Puzur-Mama, probably the official who recorded or was responsible for the matter, is followed by a broken line. It is a rare glimpse of early policing or labor accounting across city lines.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five men are listed, each with his father's name: Ur-sudda son of Al-sa, Ur-Iškur son of Muni-kalama, Lugal-kar son of Lugal-irida, Lugal-kigala son of Eda-ḫul, and Ur-namnun son of Nammaḫni. They are men from Šuruppak, and they are the ones who carried out the 'sa-gaz' — apparently an act of robbery. On the reverse the name Puzur-Mama appears, followed by a line that is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1 (man): Ur-sudda, son of Al-sa, 1 (man): Ur-Iškur, son of Muni-kalama, 1 (man): Lugal-kar, son of Lugal-irida, 1 (man): Lugal-kigala, son of Eda-ḫul, 1 (man): Ur-namnun, son of Nammaḫni: men of Šuruppak; they are ones who committed robbery (sa-gaz). Reverse Puzur-Mama ... [...] (rest 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
1(asz@c) ur-sud3-da dumu al-sa6 1(asz@c) ur-iszkur dumu mu-ni-kalam-ma 1(asz@c) lugal-kar dumu lugal-iri-da 1(asz@c) lugal-ki-gal-la dumu e2-da-hul2 1(asz@c) ur-nam2-nun dumu nam-mah-ni lu2 szuruppak sa gaz i3-ak-me puzur4-ma-ma mu-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 008. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P020422) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.