Position in chronology
Nisaba 15, 0474
About this tablet
A one-off expenditure receipt from the Ur III city of Irisagrig, dated to the eighth year of King Shu-Suen (around 2030 BCE). The palace administration issued huge quantities of date-palm byproducts — the stiff spines and leafy fronds — to reed-workers, the craftsmen who wove baskets, mats, and other fiber goods. The transaction was authorized under the seal of Ali-nisu, an overseer of the weavers, showing how tightly even scrap plant material was tracked in the Ur III command economy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued from stores: 3,600 units of date-palm spines and 5,400 units of palm fronds, allocated as materials for the reed-workers. The disbursement was authorized under the seal of Ali-nisu, overseer of the weavers, and is entered in the books as an expenditure. Dated to the year King Shu-Suen of Ur built the magnificent ceremonial barge for the gods Enlil and Ninlil — his eighth year on the throne.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3,600 (bundles of) date-palm spines, 5,400 (bundles of) date-palm fronds: requisition of the reed-worker(s). Sealed tablet of Ali-nisu, overseer of the weavers. It is booked out (as an expenditure). Year: "Shu-Suen, king of Ur, fashioned the magnificent barge for Enlil and Ninlil" (Shu-Suen year 8).
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
1(szar2) pesz-murgu2 1(szar2) 3(gesz'u) pa geszimmar nig2-dab5 ad-kup4 kiszib3 a-li2-ni-su nu-banda3 usz-bar zi-ga-am3 mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Nisaba 15, 0474. 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 183 (private: anonymous, Germany) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P453865). 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.