Position in chronology
AuOr 31, 233 06
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative voucher from Umma, recording rations of beer, bread, oil, alkali, fish, and onions issued to two named individuals, Šu-Iškur and Ur-Nanna, followed by a separate, larger allotment of bread, beer, and oil earmarked as travel provisions for a group of runners or messengers (kas4). Such texts were routine bookkeeping in the vast Ur III bureaucracy, tracking exactly how much food and drink state institutions distributed to workers and couriers on a given day. The date formula anchors it to the year following the destruction of the city of Šašrum, a campaign commemorated in the year-name of King Šu-Sin, placing the tablet in his eighth regnal year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This receipt logs two personal rations — one for a man named Šu-Iškur, one for a man named Ur-Nanna — each consisting of 3 sila of beer, 2 sila of bread, 2 shekels of oil, 2 shekels of alkali plant, a fish, and a bundle of onions. A further, larger issue follows: 5 ban of bread and 3 ban of ordinary beer plus half a sila of sesame oil, set aside as travel provisions for a group of couriers, handled through the official Ur-Nanna. The tablet is dated to the fourth day of the month of Nesag, in the year after the destruction of Šašrum — that is, the eighth year of King Šu-Sin's reign.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 sila3 beer, 2 sila3 bread, 2 shekels oil, 2 shekels alkali(-plant), 1 fish, 1 bundle of onions: for Šu-Iškur. 3 sila3 beer, 2 sila3 bread, 2 shekels oil, 2 shekels alkali(-plant), 1 fish, 1 bundle of onions: for Ur-Nanna. 5 ban2 bread, 3 ban2 beer — regular (quality), 1/2 sila3 sesame oil, provisions for the runners, via Ur-Nanna. Day 4, month: Nesag, year following: 'Šašrum was destroyed.'
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
3(disz) sila3 kasz 2(disz) sila3 ninda 2(disz) gin2 i3 2(disz) gin2 naga 1(disz) ku6 1(disz) sa szum2 szu-iszkur 3(disz) sila3 kasz 2(disz) sila3 ninda 2(disz) gin2 i3 2(disz) gin2 naga 1(disz) ku6 1(disz) sa szum2 ur-nanna 5(ban2) ninda 3(ban2) kasz du 1/2(disz) sila3 i3-gesz sza3-gal kas4-e-ne giri3 ur-nanna u4 4(disz)-kam iti nesag mu <us2>-sa sza-asz-ru-um ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AuOr 31, 233 06. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 464286 (private: anonymous, Barcelona, Spain) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P464286). 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.