Position in chronology
CUSAS 40, 1443
About this tablet
A receipt from the Ur III city of Irisagrig, dated to the ninth year of King Šu-Suen (about 2028 BCE). A scribe named Nūr-ilī, son of Ur-Dumuzi, formally acknowledges receiving dairy goods and a large quantity of dates from an official named Šu-Eštar. The year-formula and receipt clause each appear twice, and the text closes with the receiving scribe's seal legend — the everyday paperwork of a state economy that tracked even butter and cheese to the half-liter.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received from Šu-Eštar: about 25.5 liters of clarified butter, 48 liters of cheese, and roughly 5,600 liters of dates. The recipient is Nūr-ilī (his name and the word 'received' are restored in a damaged passage, but confirmed by the seal). The transaction is dated to the year King Šu-Suen of Ur built the temple of the god Šara at Umma — the date and the receipt clause are written out twice. The document is stamped with the seal of Nūr-ilī, scribe, son of Ur-Dumuzi, also a scribe.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 ban 5 1/2 sila of ghee, 4 ban 8 sila of cheese, 18 gur 3 barig 3 ban 5 sila of dates — from Šu-Eštar [Nūr-ilī] [received]. Year: Šu-Suen, [king] of Ur, built the temple of Šara in Umma. (He) received. Year: Šu-Suen, king of Ur, built the temple of Šara in Umma. (Seal:) Nūr-ilī, the scribe, son of Ur-Dumuzi, the scribe.
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
2(ban2) 5(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 i3-nun 4(ban2) 8(disz) sila3 ga-ar3 1(u) 8(asz) 3(barig) 3(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 zu2-lum gur ki szu-esz18-dar-ta [nu-ur2-i3-li2] [szu ba-ti] [mu szu-]suen [lugal] uri5#-ma-ke4 e2 szara2 umm-ka mu-du3 szu# ba-ti mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 e2 szara2 umma mu-du3 nu-ur2-i3-li2 dub-sar dumu ur-dumu-zi dub-sar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 40, 1443. 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: Kress 225 & IM — (National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq; private: anonymous, Germany) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P464343). 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.