LB 0244

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P388778

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Girsu (modern Tello), recording a barley loan of 9 gur 4 barig measured by the royal standard. One official, Lu-Ninšubur, is the source of the grain; another party, recorded 'in the name of' Lu-DU, receives it as a loan. Thousands of such tablets survive from the well-organized bureaucracy of the Ur III state (c. 2100–2000 BCE), which tracked grain, labor, and livestock down to fractions of a measure. The final line, giving the year name, is too damaged to identify which regnal year this belongs to.

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

Written in modern English

A record states that 9 gur and 4 barig of barley — measured by the royal standard — were issued from the holdings of Lu-Ninšubur. The grain was taken out as a loan on behalf of Lu-DU, who is noted as having received it. The transaction is dated to the month of the barley-carrying festival. The year name that would pin down exactly which year this happened in is badly damaged and cannot be read.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

9 gur 4 barig barley, royal measure, from Lu-Ninšubur, in the name of Lu-DU, he received (it) as its loan. Month: “Festival of carrying barley” (ezem-še-illa). Year: “the throne … [broken] … AN … was …” (year name, broken).

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.

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

9(asz) 4(barig) sze gur lugal
ki lu2-nin-szubur-ta#
mu lu2-DU-sze3
ur5-bi-is szu ba-ti
iti ezem-sze-il2-la
mu gu-za x x AN x ba-x

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — LB 0244. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: LB 0244 (de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P388778). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.