Position in chronology
Orient 55, 168 no. 16
About this tablet
A one-day receipt from the royal livestock center at Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), near Nippur, dating to the first year of King Šu-Sin of Ur, around 2037 BCE. Three animals — a gazelle fawn contributed by a provincial governor named Dada, and two lambs from two other men — were handed over on the nineteenth day of the harvest month and booked to the account of the official Inta'ea, with the scribe Nur-Suen named as the conveying agent. Tablets like this were produced by the hundreds at Drehem, where animals from all over the kingdom were gathered before being redistributed to temples, the court, and the kitchens; the wild gazelle among the domestic lambs hints at hunting tribute alongside ordinary flocks.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received: one gazelle fawn from Governor Dada, one lamb from U'u-mu, and one lamb from Šeš-kalla — three animals in all. The delivery was made on the 19th of the harvest month and entered on Inta'ea's account; the scribe Nur-Suen handled the transfer. Dated to the year Šu-Sin became king.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 fawn of a female gazelle — (from) Dada, the governor; 1 lamb — (from) U'u-mu; 1 lamb — (from) Šeš-kalla. Day 19 (lit. 20 minus 1). Delivery. Inta'ea took (them) in charge. Via Nur-Suen, the scribe. Month: Še-sag-ku (harvest). Year: Šu-Sin (became) king. (edge) 3 (head).
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(disz) amar masz-da3-munus da-da ensi2 1(disz) sila4 u2-u2-mu 1(disz) sila4 szesz-kal-la u4 2(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam mu-kux(DU) in-ta-e3-a i3-dab5 giri3 nu-ur2-suen dub-sar iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu szu-suen lugal 3(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Orient 55, 168 no. 16. 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 20.1.20 (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P424387). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.