Anonymous 497527

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P497527

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Girsu (modern Tello), recording the delivery or intake of a single suckling lamb, handled by a man named Lu-kalla and stored in a wooden storehouse or granary. Such texts were part of the vast bookkeeping apparatus of the Ur III state, which tracked livestock, grain, and goods moving through royal and temple institutions in extraordinary detail. The date formula names a year remembered for the selection of Inanna's high priestess (the en) through omen-taking — a rare glimpse of religious ritual anchoring routine economic paperwork.

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

Written in modern English

Record: one suckling lamb, newly born, received through Lu-kalla and placed in the (wooden) storehouse. Dated to the 23rd day of the month of the Dumuzi festival, in the year when the high priestess of Inanna was chosen by omen-reading. A short, routine livestock intake receipt from the Ur III bureaucracy at Girsu.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1 suckling lamb (sila4 ga), newborn (u3-tu-da), (from/via) Lu-kalla, within the (wooden) storehouse [wood], month: "Festival of Dumuzi," day 23 having passed, year: "the en-priestess of Inanna was chosen by omens (masz)."

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(disz) sila4 ga
u3-tu-da
lu2-kal-la
sza3# ga2-nun [gesz]
iti ezem-dumu-zi u4 2(u) 3(disz) ba-zal
mu en inanna [masz-e i3-pa3]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Anonymous 497527. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Anonymous 497527 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P497527). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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