Position in chronology
AuOr 33, 215-220
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative tablet from Girsu (modern Tello), recording the death of a single sheep and its delivery to the palace, presumably so its hide or meat could be accounted for rather than simply lost. Such texts were routine bookkeeping — herders and officials had to document every animal's fate, even natural deaths, to keep the state's flocks reconciled. The tablet is dated by a well-known year-name referring to the destruction of the city of Šašrum, anchoring it to the reign of a late Third Dynasty of Ur king (commonly associated with Šu-Sin).
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One sheep — classed as a 'gu4-e-us2-sa' animal — died, and its carcass was brought into the palace for processing. The loss was recorded three days into the month, entered as an expenditure under the official Abi-latum's account. The record is dated to the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year that Šašrum was destroyed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 sheep, (of the) gu4-e-us2-sa (class), died; (it) was brought into the palace. From the (start of the) month, 3 days having passed — expenditure (booked) of Abi-latum. Month: festival of Šulgi. Year: Šašrum was destroyed.
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
1(disz) udu# gu4#-e-us2-sa ba#-usz2 e2-gal#-la# ba-an-kux(KWU147) iti-ta u4 3(disz) ba-ta-zal zi#-ga# a2-bi2-la-tum iti# ezem#-szul-gi mu# sza#-asz-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, 1035 (Šiauliai Aušros Museum, Šiauliai, Lithuania) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P431429). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.