Position in chronology
Orient 55, 159 no. 5
About this tablet
An administrative note from the great provincial center of Umma in southern Iraq, written around 2039 BCE under King Amar-Suena of the Third Dynasty of Ur. It records three named workers under the foreman Basa who are marked 'fallen' — that is, deceased or struck from the labor rolls — each with the month from which he stopped being counted. The state's meticulous bookkeeping extended even to death: a scribe named Ur-amma sealed the document as the responsible official, so the missing labor could be accounted for.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Personnel loss report, sealed and filed. Three men from foreman Basa's crew are hereby removed from the roster as deceased: E-ki, gone since the month of Dal; Lugal-daba'an, since the sowing month; and ARAD-hula, since the month E-iti-6. Recorded under the official responsibility of Ur-amma, the scribe, son of Na-silim, who applied his seal. Filed in the year the high priest of Eridu was installed — the eighth year of King Amar-Suena.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (worker): E-ki, from the month 'Dal' (onward); 1 (worker): Lugal-daba'an, from the month 'Sowing' (Šu-numun onward); 1 (worker): ARAD-hula, from the month 'House-of-the-sixth-month' (E-iti-6 onward); — fallen (deceased/dropped from the roster). Foreman: Basa. Sealed tablet of the šatam-office (accountability) of Ur-amma. Year: 'The en-priest(ess) of Eridu was installed' (Amar-Suena year 8). (Seal:) Ur-amma, the scribe, son of Na-silim.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(disz) e2-ki iti dal-ta 1(disz) lugal#-da5-ba-an iti szu-numun-na-ta 1(disz) ARAD2-hul3-la iti e2-iti-6(disz)-ta ri-ri-ga ugula ba-sa6 kiszib3 nam-sza3-tam ur-am3-ma mu en eridu ba-hun ur-am3-ma dub-sar dumu na-silim
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Orient 55, 159 no. 5. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: WCMA 93.1.109c (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P424401). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.