Amherst 091

~2043 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P100930

About this tablet

This is a small loan receipt from the Ur III administration at Girsu (modern Tello), recording a barley loan of 12 gur and 2 barig — measured by the royal standard — issued to cover rations or supplies for a work-gang or troop unit. The loan came from an official named Ur-Enlil and was conveyed by an agent, with the transaction recorded in the name of a man called Namah, son of Ur-gigir. The document was sealed by Namah's own son, Šeš-kalla, who was himself a professional scribe — a nice glimpse of a father-and-son scribal/administrative family working within the same bureaucratic network. The year name, 'Huhnuri was destroyed,' anchors the tablet to a specific Ur III military campaign and helps date it precisely.

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

Written in modern English

This tablet records a barley loan of 12 gur and 2 barig (measured in the royal standard) issued to support a group of workers or soldiers. The barley came from an official named Ur-Enlil and was delivered through an agent named Ur5-bi-šeba-du11. The loan was recorded under the name of Namah, son of Ur-gigir, and the document was sealed by Namah's son, Šeš-kalla, who acted as the scribe. It is dated to the month of Amar-a-a-si, in the year that Huhnuri was destroyed.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

12 gur, 2 barig barley — royal gur (measure) — barley as a loan, for the troops (erin2), from Ur-Enlil, via Ur5-bi-šeba-du11, in the name of Namah, son of Ur-gigir. Seal of Šeš-kalla, his (Namah's) son. Month: Amar-a-a-si. Year: Huhnuri was destroyed. Šeš-kalla, the scribe, son of Namah.

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 — Sonnet 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(u) 2(asz) 2(barig) sze gur lugal
sze ur5-ra erin2-na-sze3
ki ur-en-lil2-ta
giri3 ur5-bi-sze3-ba-du11
mu nam-mah# dumu ur-gigir-sze3
kiszib3 szesz-kal-la dumu-na
iti amar-a-a-si
mu hu-hu-nu-ri ba-hul
szesz-kal-la
dub-sar
dumu nam-mah#

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Amherst 091. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: A.1249_1982 (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P100930). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.