Position in chronology
TMH 05, 100
About this tablet
A small delivery receipt from the city of Nippur in southern Iraq, written in the Early Dynastic period (mid-third millennium BCE). It records a man named Ur-Lisi bringing a large consignment of fleece-wool — a bit over 56 minas, roughly 28 kilograms — to another individual, Lugal-tešmu. The note is dated by month and by a year-name commemorating the destruction of some place or object, a glimpse of how early Mesopotamian bureaucrats kept track of time as well as goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received: 56⅓ minas (about 28 kg) of suluḫu-fleece wool, delivered by Ur-Lisi to Lugal-tešmu. Dated in the month 'when the plough is unhitched' — the slack season after ploughing — in the year remembered as the one when a certain place was destroyed; the name of that place is written with two signs whose reading is no longer certain. In short: a wool shipment, its carrier, its recipient, and its date — a routine slip from a Nippur storehouse.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 60 less 3 (and) two-thirds (= 56⅓) minas of suluḫu-fleece(-wool), to (the place of) Lugal-tešmu, Ur-Lisi brought (it). Reverse: Month: 'When the plough is unhitched' (apin-du₈-a). Year: '(when) ... (AŠ₂ NA) was destroyed.'
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(gesz2@c) la2 3(asz@c) 2/3(asz@c) sza-na-be6 ma-na suluhu2 ki lugal-tesz2-mu-sze3 ur-li9-si4 i3-de6 iti apin-du8-a mu ASZ2 NA al-hul-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 100. 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 (P020514) — 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.