Position in chronology
ABAA (KAO 4), 79 P351
About this tablet
This is a small sealed administrative tablet from Girsu, part of the vast Ur III state bureaucracy that tracked barley, sheep, and grain disbursements down to individual officials. It records two gur of barley and a quantity of processed emmer connected to the regular feeding of grain-fattened sheep, sealed and vouched for by a livestock-fattener named Zum-zum, with the goods allotted to two named individuals, Geme-Lamma and Nin-dingira. The year formula — 'Karhar was destroyed for the third time' — anchors the tablet to a specific royal military campaign that Ur III scribes used as a calendar marker, giving us a precise historical peg for an otherwise mundane transaction.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This receipt records 2 gur of barley (royal standard) issued as the regular ration for grain-fed sheep, along with a quantity of processed emmer. The transaction is sealed by Zum-zum. It is dated to the extra (intercalary) month called 'Harvest,' in the year Karhar was destroyed for the third time. The barley and emmer were allotted to Geme-Lamma and Nin-dingira. The seal impression identifies Zum-zum, the livestock-fattener, as the responsible official — literally 'your servant' in the formal seal-legend language of the period.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 gur barley (royal measure), regular offering (sa2-du11) of grain-fed sheep, emmer, processed at/for the threshing floor (ziz2 ur3-re-ba-du7); under seal of Zum-zum. Month: intercalary month, "Harvest" (sze-sag11-ku5); Year: Karhar was destroyed for the 3rd time. Geme-Lamma, (and) Nin-dingira — allotted/distributed (ba-ba6). (Seal legend:) Zum-zum, the fattener, is your servant.
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
2(asz) sze gur lugal sa2-du11 udu niga ziz2 ur3-re-ba-du7 kiszib3 zum-zum iti diri sze-sag11-ku5 mu kar2-har a-ra2 3(disz@t)-kam-asz ba-hul geme2-lamma nin-dingir ba-ba6 zum-zum kuruszda ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — ABAA (KAO 4), 79 P351. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: LB 0238 (de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P100193). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.