Anonymous 458904

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P458904

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Umma, recording the disbursement or transfer of eighteen pieces of assorted wood from a man named Ur-e'e, earmarked for the plowmen or farmers of an agricultural household or temple estate. The document was sealed by an official whose name is partly broken (Lugal-...), and it is dated by a royal year-name commemorating a ninth military campaign against the Simurrum and Lullubum peoples in the Zagros mountains — a formula associated with the reign of King Shulgi. Such wood-issue tablets are common in the vast Umma archive and illuminate the routine logistics of supplying farming teams with timber, likely for plows, yokes, or tool handles.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Eighteen pieces of assorted wood were issued, coming from Ur-e'e, and allocated for the use of the plowmen/farmers. The transaction was sealed by an official named Lugal-... (the rest of his name is broken off). It is dated to the year when Simurrum and Lullubum were destroyed for the ninth time — one of King Shulgi's later regnal years, named for a repeated military campaign in the eastern highlands.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

18 (units of) mixed wood(s) — from Ur-e'e; for/in the name of the farmers (engar-e-ne); sealed by Lugal-x-x (name partly broken); Year: 'Simurrum (and) Lullubum were destroyed for the 9th time.'

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

1(u) 8(disz) gesz hi-a
ki ur-e11-e-ta
mu engar-e-ne
kiszib3 lugal-x-x
mu si-mu-ru-um lu-lu-bum2 a-ra2# 1(u) la2 1(disz@t)-kam-asz ba#-[hul]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Anonymous 458904. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Anonymous 458904 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P458904). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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