Kress 198

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P427666

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the city of Irisagrig, recording bread and oil-based foods disbursed for a recurring temple festival called the eshesh, held at a shrine known as the 'House of the 15th Day.' A palace official, the cupbearer Ur-Šulgi, conveyed the offerings, which came from royal stores. The tablet is dated by month and by a year-name referencing the installation of the high priest(ess) of Eridu — a small but precise data point for reconstructing the Ur III bureaucratic and religious calendar around Irisagrig.

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

Written in modern English

This receipt records a food offering for a monthly temple festival: two loaves of gug-bread at two sila each, twelve small loaves at half a sila each (one ban2 of bread total), three sila of an oil-based food preparation, and two loaves of oil-bread. These were supplied for the eshesh-festival at the shrine called the House of the 15th Day, sent from the king's stores and delivered under the responsibility of Ur-Šulgi, the royal cupbearer. The transaction was formally booked as an expenditure. It is dated to the month of Kirsiak, in the year the en-priest of Eridu was installed in office.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

2 gug-bread(loaves), 2 sila each; 12 bread(loaves), 1/2 sila each; its bread: 1 ban2; 3 sila of nig-idea (oil-poured food); 2 oil-bread(loaves) — for the eshesh-festival of the House-of-the-15th-Day; [from the king]; via Ur-Šulgi, the cupbearer; booked out (as expenditure). Month: Kirsiak. Year: 'the en-priest(ess) of Eridu was installed.'

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

2(disz) ninda gug2 2(disz) sila3-ta
1(u) 2(disz) ninda 1/2(disz) sila3-ta
ninda-bi 1(ban2)
3(disz) sila3 nig2-i3-de2-a
2(disz) ninda-i3
esz3-esz3 e2-u4-1(u) 5(disz)-kam
[ki lugal-sze3]
giri3 ur-szul-gi sagi
zi-ga
iti kir11-si-ak
mu en eridu ba-hun

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Kress 198. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Kress 198 (private: anonymous, Germany) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P427666). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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