Position in chronology
MVN 05, 128
About this tablet
A one-day livestock disbursement record from Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), the great animal clearinghouse of the Ur III state near Nippur, dated to the seventh year of King Šu-Suen. Twelve young gazelles are booked out of the central account of the official Intaea: six destined for the e-uzga, an elite royal establishment, via a cook, and six taken as 'šu-gid' animals — stock culled for the kitchen — charged to the sealed storehouse. It is a snapshot of the meticulous daily bookkeeping that tracked every animal, down to gazelle kids, through the empire's redistribution system around 2030 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
On day 21, twelve young gazelles were signed out of the account of the official Intaea. Six of them (the tablet is slightly damaged here) went to the e-uzga, the royal provisioning house, handled by the cook Uri-kidu; the other six, all males, were taken as kitchen-cull animals charged to the sealed storehouse. All twelve came out of that day's incoming deliveries. The scribe Nur-Suen oversaw the transfer. Filed in the twelfth month, the festival of Mekigal, in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur destroyed the land of Zabšali.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 gazelle kids [...], (for) the e-uzga establishment, from Uri-ki[du], the cook; 6 male gazelle kids, šu-gid offerings for the sealed storehouse; from among the deliveries, the 21st day, from Intaea withdrawn. Conveyor: Nur-Suen, the scribe. Month: 'Festival of Mekigal' (month 12). Year: 'Šu-Suen, king of Ur, destroyed the land of Zabšali' (Šu-Suen year 7, ca. 2030 BCE).
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
6(disz) amar masz-da3 [...] e2-uz-ga ki uri5-ki-[du10] muhaldim 6(disz) amar masz-da3-nita2 szu-gid2 e2-kiszib3-ba-sze3 sza3 mu-kux(DU)-ra-[ta] u4 2(u) 1(disz)-kam ki in-ta-e3-[a-ta] ba-zi giri3 nu-ur2-suen dub-sar iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 128. 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: Anonymous 114348 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114348). 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.