Position in chronology
Kress 230
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III labor-accounting tablet from Umma, recording a work detail of fifteen men assigned for five days to two named institutional buildings — a construction/masonry establishment and a livestock (goat) house. Such texts were routine bookkeeping by the Umma temple-and-palace bureaucracy, tracking how many laborers were deployed where, who oversaw them (the foreman), who physically conveyed the order or workers (the intermediary), and whose seal authorized the record. The year formula dates it to the reign of King Shulgi of Ur, in the year following his campaign against Kimash — one of the standard year-names used across the Ur III empire for dating everyday documents like this one.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records that fifteen laborers worked for five days, assigned to two work sites: one connected to the builders'/masons' establishment, and another connected to the goat-house. The crew was overseen by a foreman named Ukkene, the matter was handled through an official named Lu-girizal, and the record was sealed and authorized by Bidugga. The document is dated to the year that Kimash was destroyed — a standard year-name used in the Ur III period, under King Shulgi's reign.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 workmen, for 5 days, stationed at the e2-szitim (the builders'/brickmasons' house), stationed at the e2-masz (the goat-house), foreman: Ukkene, via Lu-girizal, under seal of Bidugga. Year: "Kimash 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
1(u) 5(disz) gurusz u4 5(disz)-sze3 e2-szitim gub-ba e2-masz-ka gub-ba ugula ukken-ne2 giri3 lu2-giri17-zal kiszib3 bi2-du11-ga mu ki-masz mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Kress 230. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Kress 230 (private: anonymous, Germany) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P471645). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.