MVN 15, 376

~2037 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P118641

About this tablet

This is not an account itself but a filing label — a tag once attached to a basket of clay tablets in the archives of Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), the great livestock clearing-house of the Ur III state near Nippur. It identifies the basket's contents: nine months of income and expenditure records kept by an official named Ur-Nanna, filed in the fourth year of King Šu-Suen (about 2034 BCE). The year is named after the king's construction of a defensive wall against the Amorites, called 'It keeps Tidnum at bay' — a small archival tag that incidentally preserves a moment of imperial frontier anxiety.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Label for a records basket: the file box from the storehouse containing the incoming assets and the outgoing expenditures handled by Ur-Nanna. Coverage: from the month of the barley harvest through the month of the Festival of Šu-Suen — nine months in all. Filed in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur built the Amorite wall, the one named 'Muriq-Tidnim' ('It keeps Tidnum at a distance'). In modern terms: 'Ur-Nanna — receipts and disbursements, months 12 through 8, fiscal year Šu-Suen 4.'

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Tablet basket: (tablets of) the ētum-house (storehouse), debits (capital account) and expenditures of Ur-Nanna; from the month 'Harvest' (še-sag-ku₅) to the month 'Festival of Šu-Suen,' (a period of) 9 months. Year: 'Šu-Suen, king of Ur, built the Amorite wall (called) Muriq-Tidnim.'

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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

pisan-dub-ba
e2-tum
sag-nig2-gur11-ra
u3 zi-ga
ur-nanna
iti sze-sag11-ku5-ta
iti ezem-szu-suen-sze3
iti 9(disz)-kam
mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4? bad3 mar-tu mu-ri-iq-ti-id-ni-im mu-du3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 15, 376. 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: WCMA 93.1.109a (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P118641). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~2050 BCE

Drehem Cattle-Distribution Tablet

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.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1