Position in chronology
MVN 05, 033
About this tablet
A small livestock account from Umma in southern Iraq, written about 2040 BCE under the Third Dynasty of Ur. It records the death of a single goat — one of the 'Amorite' breed kept by the provincial herds — transferred out of the account of the herdsman Lugal-azida and certified with the seal of the scribe Lu-kalla. The seal legend names Lu-kalla as the son of Ur-e'e, a chief livestock officer, so the family ran the province's animal bookkeeping. Even a dead goat had to be documented: Ur III administration tracked every head of livestock, alive or dead, by name, month and year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One Amorite nanny-goat is recorded as dead, written off from the holdings of Lugal-azida. The transaction was certified under the seal of Lu-kalla in the month of Min-eš, in the year En-unugal was installed as priest of Inanna. The seal itself reads: 'Lu-kalla, scribe, son of Ur-e'e, the livestock administrator.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 Amorite nanny-goat — it died. From Lugal-azida. Sealed tablet of Lu-kalla. Month: Min-eš. Year: En-unugal was installed (as en-priest) of Inanna. (Seal inscription:) Lu-kalla, scribe, son of Ur-e'e, the livestock administrator (šuš₃).
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) ud5 mar-tu ba-usz2 ki lugal-a2-zi-da-ta kiszib3 lu2-kal-la iti min-esz3 mu en-unu6-gal inanna ba-hun lu2-kal-la dub-sar dumu ur-e11-e szusz3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 033. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y4 — En-unugal of Inanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 114253 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114253). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.