Position in chronology
TMH 05, 106
About this tablet
A textile account from Nippur, written some 4,500 years ago in the Early Dynastic period. A scribe tallies a delivery of cloth — thirty-odd garments sorted by type, from luxury niĝ₂-lam₂ cloth to thin bar-dul₅ cloaks and aktum wraps — and closes the account with the name of the man responsible, Kur-re-re, a note that the total was formally reckoned to his charge, and the month of the barley harvest. Textiles were among the highest-value products of Sumerian temple households, so registers like this one track wealth as carefully as any silver account.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Textile receipt: eight fine-grade garments, seven niĝ-la garments, seven waist-garments, two ḫalaum garments, two lightweight cloaks, one garment of a type now broken away, and two aktum wraps. A further line or two listing cloth and a register is too damaged to read. The account was charged to Kur-re-re and settled in the month of the barley harvest.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine8 fine-grade (niĝ₂-lam₂) garments; 7 niĝ₂-la₂ garments; 7 ib₂-ba-du₃ garments (belted/waist garments); 2 ḫa-la-um garments; 2 bar-dul₅ cloaks, of thin (fine) weave; 1 na-[...] garment; 2 aktum [garments]; ... tablet(s)/register [...]; ... garment ... [...]; (reverse) Kur-re-re; reckoned out to him; month: "Barley-harvest" (še-KIN-ku₅).
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
8(asz@c) nig2-lam2 tug2 7(asz@c) nig2-la2 tug2 7(asz@c) ib2-ba-du3 tug2 2(asz@c) ha-la-um tug2 2(asz@c) bar-dul5 sal-la 1(asz@c) tug2 na-[...] 2(asz@c) aktum [tug2] x dub [...] tug2 x [...] kur-re2-re2 an-na-szid iti sze-KIN-ku5
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 106. 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 (P020520) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.