Position in chronology
TMH 05, 140
About this tablet
A small, cushion-shaped clay tablet from Nippur, written some time in the mid-third millennium BCE, recording a delivery of goods — a dye-plant, honey, and bundles of some worked material — sent in the names of Lugal-kisalsi, king of Uruk, and of Mes-kalam-si, a royal son. A man named Girini-badab, described as a boatman of Uruk, is credited with carrying the consignment. Nippur was the religious centre of Sumer, and southern rulers regularly sent goods there; this scrap of accounting is the sort of note that anchors a king known from royal inscriptions to a specific, datable shipment.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received: 3 units of mašti-ḪAR and 10 units of the dye-plant u₂-ḫab, together with a palm-wood item — this lot in the name of Lugal-kisalsi, king of Uruk. Also 10 bundles of worked leather goods, one jar of honey for the junior official, and 2 barig of the same dye-plant measured by the gur — this lot in the name of Mes-kalam-si, the king's son. Girini-badab, a boatman from Uruk, delivered the whole consignment to them.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 (units of) mašti-ḪAR; 10 (units of) u₂-ḫab (dye-plant), ... of/with date-palm — Lugal-kisalsi, king of Uruk. 10 KID-DU-|GIR₂×AŠGAB| bundles; 1 (jar of) honey, (for) the nig₂-banda (junior official); 2 barig of u₂-ḫab (dye-plant), by the gur measure — Mes-kalam-si, the royal son (prince). Girini-badab, the boatman of Uruk, brought (them) to them.
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
3(asz@c) masz-ti-HAR 1(u@c) u2-hab2 x geszimmar-da lugal-kisal-si lugal unu 1(u@c) KID-DU-|GIR2xASZGAB| sa 1(asz@c) lal3 nig2-banda3 2(barig@c) u2-hab2 gur mes-kalam-si dumu-lugal giri3-ni-ba-dab5 lu2 u5 unu-ke4 in-ne-de6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 140. 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 (P020554) — 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.