Position in chronology
NCC 004
About this tablet
A small labor receipt from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the first year of King Šu-Suen of the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2037 BCE). It logs two work assignments: one man spent five days traveling to the holy city of Nippur with dairy goods, and three men spent two days hauling chaff there. A foreman supervised the crews, and the official Lu-kalla — a scribe whose family seal names his father Ur-E'e — rolled his cylinder seal over the tablet to certify the account. It is a snapshot of the meticulous state bookkeeping that tracked even a few man-days of porter labor.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Work log: one laborer, five days, sent to Nippur with a consignment of oil and milk for the neighbor's household (the exact recipient is partly illegible). Also three laborers, two days, sent to Nippur carrying chaff. Their supervisor's name is partly damaged — something like '...-gala.' The account is certified under the seal of Lu-kalla, in the year Šu-Suen became king. The seal itself reads: Lu-kalla, scribe, son of Ur-E'e.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 male worker for 5 days, to Nippur, (with) oil and milk (for) the house of the neighbor(?) ... [sign damaged] 3 male workers for 2 days, to Nippur, carrying chaff. Foreman: [x]-gala. Sealed tablet of Lu-kalla. Year: Šu-Suen (became) king. (Seal inscription:) Lu-kalla, the scribe, son of Ur-E'e.
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
1(disz) gurusz u4 5(disz)-sze3 nibru-sze3 i3 ga e2 uszurx(|LAL2.TUG2|)#? x 3(disz) gurusz u4 2(disz)-sze3 nibru-sze3 in-bul5-bul5 il-la ugula x-ga-la kiszib3 lu2-kal-la mu szu-suen lugal lu2-kal-la dub-sar dumu ur-e11-e
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NCC 004. 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: NCC 004 (Oesterle Library, North Central College, Naperville, Illinois, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P469659). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
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.