Position in chronology
MVN 05, 005
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Umma, recording a disbursement of 15 gur of fresh fish and 3 calves credited to a man named Puzur-Erra, authenticated by the seal of an official named Ur-Enun. The bottom lines are the seal legend itself — Ur-Enun's name and his father Umani's name — the standard formula stamped on Ur III sealed tablets to certify the transaction. The date is fixed by a year-name commemorating the construction of 'the house of Puzur-Dagan,' one of the many local building events used to name years in this period, around 2100–2000 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a receipt: fifteen gur of fresh fish and three calves were handed over to a man named Puzur-Erra. The transaction was certified with the seal of an official called Ur-Enun. It's dated to 'the year the house of Puzur-Dagan was built' — a local year-name used at Umma. The seal impression itself identifies the sealing official as Ur-Enun, son of Umani.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 gur of fresh fish, 3 calves — for Puzur-Erra; under seal of Ur-Enun. Year: "The house of Puzur-Dagan was built." Ur-Enun, son of Umani.
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(asz) ku6 gibil gur 3(disz) amar mu puzur4-er3-ra-sze3 kiszib3 ur-e2-nun mu e2 puzur4-da-gan ba-du3 ur-e2-nun dumu u3-ma-[ni]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 005. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 114225 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114225). 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.