Position in chronology
Akkadica 135/1, 098-100 13
About this tablet
A labor-accounting docket from Umma in southern Iraq, written about 2036 BCE under King Šu-Sîn of the Third Dynasty of Ur. It records the harrowing of a 90-iku tract in the field called Nin-ura: the work gang covered a set quota of ground per man per day, and the total labor charged to the account came to sixty worker-days, supervised by a foreman named Ur-ama. The tablet was sealed by the scribe Šeš-ani, son of Dada, whose personal seal legend is copied out at the end — one of the tens of thousands of such receipts that made the Ur III state one of the most minutely documented bureaucracies of the ancient world.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ninety iku of land in the Nin-ura field were given a single harrowing pass, at the standard rate of four and a half iku per man per day. Total labor charged: sixty worker-days. The gang worked under foreman Ur-ama, and the account was certified with the seal of Šeš-ani. Dated to the year King Šu-Sîn set up the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil. The seal itself reads: 'Šeš-ani, scribe, son of Dada.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 bur3 of field, harrowed (with the gišur3-harrow), one time, at a rate of 4 1/2 iku of field (per worker per day): its workforce labor is 60 (worker-)days. Field: Nin-ura. Foreman: Ur-ama. Under the seal of Šeš-ani. Year: Šu-Sîn, the king, erected the magnificent stele for Enlil and Ninlil. (Seal inscription) Šeš-ani, scribe, son of Dada.
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
5(bur3) GAN2 gesz-ur3-ra a-ra2 1(disz) 4(iku) 1/2(iku) GAN2-ta a2 erin2-na-bi u4 1(gesz2) a-sza3 nin-ur4-ra ugula ur#-am3-ma kiszib3 szesz-a-ni mu szu-suen lugal-e na-ru2-a mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3 szesz-a-ni dub-sar dumu da-da
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Akkadica 135/1, 098-100 13. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: DMMA AA.TC.70 (Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480077). 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.