Position in chronology
AAS 048
About this tablet
A brief livestock receipt from Umma in southern Iraq, most likely dated to the 45th year of King Šulgi's reign (approximately 2049 BCE). A royal courier collected three bovines — a milch cow, a milk-fed ox, and a calf born to a draft animal — passed through a herdsman named Abbagina. The year-date anchors it to one of Šulgi's celebrated eastern campaigns, when his forces destroyed two cities, Harshi and Kimaš, in the Zagros mountain borderlands. A routine slip of the Ur III bureaucratic machine, made historically vivid by its royal dateline.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Three animals were handed over through Abbagina the herdsman and collected by a state courier: one milk cow, one milk-fed ox, and one calf born to a draft animal. The document is dated to the year King Šulgi's army destroyed the cities of Harshi and Kimaš — a military campaign commemorated across hundreds of these small administrative tablets from southern Mesopotamia.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 milch cow, 1 milk[-fed] ox, (1) calf of a draft ox — via Abbagina, the herdsman, a courier received (them). Year: Harshi and Kimaš were destroyed.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo5 uncertain terms ↓
- amar gu4-lah5 — Literally 'calf, cattle-driver/leader-of-cattle'; gu4-lah5 is a compound occupational term for one who drives/leads cattle. The '#' in the transliteration signals the sign is partially damaged.
- kas4 i3-dab5 — 'The runner has taken charge / has received (it).' kas4 = runner/courier; i3-dab5 = he/she has taken/received. Standard Ur III administrative formula for transfer of responsibility.
- ha-ar-szi ki-masz — Harshi and Kimash: two cities/regions in the Zagros foothills conquered by Šulgi. This is the standard Ur III year name for Šulgi year 47. The Akkadian forms Ḫarši and Kimaš are attested in multiple year-name lists.
- ab2 ga / gu4 ga — 'Milk cow' and 'milk ox': ga = milk (Sumerian), used attributively to denote lactating/dairy animals. The distinction ab2 (cow) vs. gu4 (bull/ox) is standard zootechnical vocabulary.
- giri3 — Literally 'foot/via'; used as an administrative preposition meaning 'under the responsibility of' or 'via (a named intermediary).' Here it introduces the responsible official Abba-gina.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination of AO 19724 (Louvre): The photograph shows a small multi-faced clay tablet displayed in an unfolded layout — obverse, reverse, and edges visible. The surface is moderately well-preserved with legible wedge impressions on the main faces. On the upper central face (obverse), approximately 4–5 horizontal lines of cuneiform are visible; individual signs are small but several clusters are recognizable. I can tentatively make out sign groups consistent with GA (milk), GU4 (ox/bull), and what appears to be a personal name sequence in line 3–4. The lower face (reverse) shows 1–2 further lines consistent with the date formula. The transliteration aligns reasonably well with what is visually discernible, though fine sign details on 'amar gu4-lah5' and 'kas4 i3-dab5' cannot be fully confirmed at this resolution. The date formula 'mu ha-ar-szi ki-masz ba-hul' is a well-known Ur III year name corresponding to Šulgi year 47 (the year Harshi and Kimash were destroyed), providing good contextual anchoring. Museum number AO 19724 and BDTNS/CDLI P100036 are consistent with an Umma administrative tablet of this type.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 2345 in / 839 out tokens
Transliteration
1(disz) ab2 ga 1(disz) gu4 ga amar gu4-lah5# giri3 ab-ba-gi-na unu3 kas4 i3-dab5 mu ha-ar-szi ki-masz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAS 048. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P100036) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.