Position in chronology
Fs Milano 339-340 02
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative tablet from Irisagrig, part of the vast bureaucratic apparatus that tracked labor and rations across the Ur III state (c. 21st century BCE). It records a disbursement of lard/oil — 6 shekels per man, for 49 male porters or carriers — with the total matching the arithmetic exactly, a small but satisfying piece of ancient bookkeeping. The year name, referring to the destruction of the city of Huhnuri, likely anchors this document to the reign of king Šu-Suen and hints at ongoing military campaigns on the Iranian frontier even as routine rations continued to be issued at home.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a ration payment: 49 male workers each received 6 shekels of lard, totaling 4 5/6 sila and 4 shekels of lard altogether. This oil allotment was for the porters, and they received it. It was overseen by a foreman named ...-šu-da (the beginning of his name is broken off). The record is dated to the harvest month, in the year that Huhnuri was destroyed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine49 male workers, 6 shekels of lard each, its lard: 4 5/6 sila₃ 4 shekels — oil-ration for the porters (ug₃-il₂), received. Foreman: ...-šu-da Month: “Harvest” (sze-sag11-ku5) Year: “Huhnuri 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
4(u)# 9(disz) gurusz 6(disz) gin2 i3-szah2-ta? i3-szah2-bi 4(disz) 5/6(disz) sila3 4(disz) gin2 i3-ba ug3-IL2-e-ne szu ba-ti ugula x-szu?-da iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu# hu#-uh2#-[nu]-ri ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Fs Milano 339-340 02. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 479900 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P479900). 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.