Position in chronology
AuOr 33, 215-220
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III livestock receipt from the royal administrative center at Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), where sheep, goats, and cattle from across the empire were collected, redistributed, and sacrificed for the state cult. The tablet records a delivery of 12 grass-fed sheep, 7 fat-tailed sheep, and two goats — each goat attributed to a named individual — associated with Šulgi-simtum, a principal wife of King Šulgi who is well known from Drehem archives as a recipient of animal deliveries. The year formula dates it to Šulgi's 26th regnal year, commemorating the (third) conquest of Simurrum, a mountain polity to the northeast of Mesopotamia. Such texts, produced by the thousands, form the backbone of our knowledge of Ur III state economy and bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A shipment arrived at the royal livestock depot: twelve sheep fed on pasture grass, seven fat-tailed sheep, one goat credited to a man named Nir-idagal, and one goat credited to a man named E'a-bani. The whole delivery was booked to (or for) Šulgi-simtum, one of the king's wives. The tablet is dated to the year the land of Simurrum was destroyed for the third time — Šulgi's twenty-sixth year on the throne.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine12 grass-fed sheep, 7 fat-tailed sheep, 1 goat: Nir-idagal, 1 goat: E'a-bani, delivery (mu-kux(DU)) of Šulgi-simtum. Year: “Simurrum was destroyed for the third time” (i.e., Šulgi year 26).
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) 2(disz) udu u2 7(disz) gukkal 1(disz) masz2 nir-i3-da-gal2 1(disz) masz2 e2-a-ba-ni mu-kux(DU) szul-gi-si2-im-tum mu a-ra2 3(disz)-kam-asz si-mu-ru-um ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AuOr 33, 215-220. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: I-A-120, 1034 (Šiauliai Aušros Museum, Šiauliai, Lithuania) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P431428). 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.