Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 28
About this tablet
A small, heavily worn clay tablet from the Early Dynastic city of Ur — one of the earliest administrative records in human history. It appears to record quantities of commodities or persons under named officials or category headings, including a reference to DILMUN (the ancient name for Bahrain or the Persian Gulf trading zone), which suggests long-distance trade or exotic goods. The surface is so damaged that several signs cannot be read with confidence. This tiny object is a fragment of the bureaucratic paperwork that kept early Mesopotamian cities running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records small quantities of items or people: two entries under someone named Amar-nirahx, apparently as head or overseer; one entry for something described as eggs, seed, or offspring; one entry under the heading 'MU' (year? name?); two entries labeled 'DILMUN,' pointing to goods from the Gulf trading region. The last line is too damaged to read. Several entries remain unidentified.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 — young [highland animal / person], Amar-nirahx, head [person/overseer?] 1 — [x x] NUNUZ [eggs/offspring/seed?] 1 — MU [...] 2 — DILMUN 2 — [...] [x x] AN [divine/celestial?] UET2_165 [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N01@f)# , amar-nirahx(UET2_153)# sag#? 1(N01@f) , x x NUNUZ#? 1(N01@f) , MU [...] 2(N01@f) , DILMUN 2(N01@f) [...] x x AN# UET2_165#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 28. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449015) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.