Position in chronology
MVN 05, 010
About this tablet
A feed account from Umma in southern Iraq, written under the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2040 BCE). It records the barley needed to fatten 180 grain-fed sheep at one liter of barley per animal per day for a month — 18 gur in total, roughly 5,400 liters. The sheep belonged to the bala, the rotating tax obligation each province owed the crown, and the transaction was authorized by the seal of Umma's own governor. Small texts like this show how precisely Ur III bureaucrats calculated animal rations, down to a figure that checks out exactly.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Feed allocation: 180 grain-fed sheep, one liter of barley per head per day, for thirty days — total barley required, 18 gur (about 5,400 liters). The grain is fodder for the fattened sheep owed under the province's bala obligation. Handled by Bida, under the governor's seal. Dated to the harvest month of the year Šašru was destroyed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine180 grain-fed sheep, 1 sila of barley each, for 30 days — its barley: 18 gur. Fodder for the grain-fed sheep of the bala (obligation), via Bida; sealed document of the governor. Month: “Harvest” (še-sag-ku₅). Year: “Šašru was destroyed.”
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
3(gesz2) udu niga 1(disz) sila3 sze-ta u4 3(u)-sze3 sze-bi 1(u) 8(asz) gur sza3-gal udu niga bala-a giri3 bi2-da kiszib3 ensi2-ka iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu sza-asz-ru ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 010. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y6 — Šašru destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 114230 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114230). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.