Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 182, Bod A 14
About this tablet
An administrative barley receipt from Girsu (modern Tello, southern Iraq), written under the Third Dynasty of Ur, around 2030 BCE. It records the transfer of three gur of barley (roughly 900 liters) booked to the account of one Ur-Ningešzida, with the scribe Ur-šuš-Baba rolling his personal seal across the tablet to certify the transaction. The year formula — 'the great stele of Enlil was erected' — dates it to the sixth year of King Šu-Suen, a small window into the meticulous grain bureaucracy that ran the Ur III state.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: three gur of barley (about 900 liters), drawn from a larger consignment of three gur received from a man named Ur-something — the details are damaged. The grain is credited to the account of Ur-Ningešzida, son of Lugal-saga. The transaction is certified by the seal of Ur-šuš-Baba, son of Na-ib..., and the barley is noted as belonging to a person called Wili-ḪA... . Dated to the harvest month, in the year the great stele of Enlil was erected (the sixth year of King Šu-Suen). The seal impression reads: Ur-šuš-Baba, scribe, son of Na-... .
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur of barley ... [...], out of the 3 (gur) [...] ... , from Ur-[...] ... [...]; for (the account of) Ur-Ningešzida, son of Lugal-saga. Sealed tablet of Ur-šuš-Baba, son of Na-ib-[...]. Barley of Wili-ḪA-... . Month: "Harvest" (še-sagku). Year: "The great stele of Enlil was erected." (Seal inscription:) Ur-šuš-Baba, the scribe, son of Na-[...].
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
3(asz) sze gur x x [...] sza3 3(asz) [...] x x-ta# ki ur#-[...] x x [...]-ta# mu ur-nin-gesz#-zi-da dumu lugal-sa6#-ga#-sze3 kiszib3 ur-szusz3-ba-ba6 dumu na-ib2-[...] sze wi-li-HA-x iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2-la2 ba-du3 ur-szusz3-ba-ba6 dub-sar dumu na-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 182, Bod A 14. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Bod A 014 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P248973). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.