Position in chronology
MVN 05, 015
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Umma (modern Tell Jokha), recording the transfer of a single object called a 'habuda' along with its weight in shekels. It names the person who supplied the item (Ur-Enlila), the official whose seal validated the transaction (Warad), and closes with a date formula and a scribe's name — Lugal-itida, son of Šeš-kalla. Tablets like this were routine bookkeeping in the vast Ur III bureaucracy, tracking the movement of goods, tools, or raw materials between individuals and state institutions around 2046 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Record of one habuda-item, weighed out at [a now-illegible number of] shekels, received from Ur-Enlila. The transaction was sealed by the official Warad. Dated to the month of Pa'u'e, in the year 'the en-priestess of Nanna was chosen by omen' (Amar-Suen's fourth regnal year). Written by the scribe Lugal-itida, son of Šeš-kalla.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 habuda(-object) — its weight: ... shekels — from Ur-Enlila — sealed by Warad — month: Pa'u'e — year: 'The en-priestess of Nanna was chosen by (extispicy) omen' — Lugal-itida, scribe, son of Šeš-kalla.
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
1(disz) ha-[bu3]-da ki-la2-bi <x> gin2 ki ur-en-lil2-la2-ta kiszib3 ARAD2 iti pa4-u2-e mu en nanna masz2-e i3-pa3 lugal-iti-da dub-sar dumu szesz-kal-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 015. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 114235 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114235). 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.