Position in chronology
Akkadica 135/1, 082-083 05
About this tablet
An administrative receipt from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the first year of King Amar-Suen of the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2046 BCE). It records the issue of twenty carrying-baskets for work on the weir at Apisal, a nearby town, with the labor performed by women from the weaving workshops. The scribe Šeš-saga, son of Lugal-gudea, signed for the goods with his personal seal — a small but vivid glimpse of how the Ur III state mobilized textile workers for canal and irrigation maintenance.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Twenty carrying-baskets were issued for construction work on the weir at Apisal. The women of the weaving workshop did the hauling — the exact detail of one line is lost to damage, though it seems to repeat that they carried the loads. The baskets were handed over by Kugani and received by Šeš-saga, who confirmed the transaction with his seal: Šeš-saga, scribe, son of Lugal-gudea. The document is dated to the year Amar-Suen became king.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine20 (earth-carrying) baskets, for the weir of Apisal — the female weavers carried the baskets; ... they carried(?) [two signs illegible]. From Kugani Šeš-saga received (them). Year: "Amar-Suen (became) king." (Seal:) Šeš-[saga], scri[be], son of Lugal-gu[dea].
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(u) dusu kun-zi-da a-pi4-sal4-sze3 geme2 usz-bar-e dusu x x ib2?-il2? ki ku3-ga-ni-ta szesz#-saga# [szu] ba-ti mu amar-suen lugal szesz-[sa6-ga] dub-[sar] dumu lugal-gu3-[de2-a]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Akkadica 135/1, 082-083 05. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Amar-Suen y1 — Amar-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: DMMA AA.TC.64 (Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480069). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.