Position in chronology
Orient 55, 160 no. 6
About this tablet
A labor account from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, written around 2038 BCE under the Third Dynasty of Ur. It tracks a crew of sixteen workmen over roughly eight days of the barley harvest: towing an empty barge out to a rural threshing site, threshing and loading grain, hauling the barge along a canal, then unloading and sealing the grain into a granary. The foreman is named, and the tablet was validated with the personal seal of the scribe Ur-Šara — a small, precise snapshot of how one of history's most bureaucratic states managed its grain supply chain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Sixteen laborers were logged as follows: two days towing an empty barge from Umma out to Du-geš-i(ka); two more days threshing barley and loading it onto the barge; one day towing the barge to the Salla canal; and three days unloading the barley, transferring it, and sealing the granary with a coat of mud plaster. The work gang was supervised by the foreman Ur-Šakkan, and the record was authorized under the seal of Ur-Šara. It is dated to the year the high priest of Gaeš was installed. The seal itself reads: Ur-Šara, scribe, son of Šeš-kalla.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine16 workmen for 2 days: towing an empty barge from Umma to Du-geš-i(ka); for 2 days: threshing the barley and loading it onto the barge; for 1 day: towing the barge to the Salla canal; for 3 days: unloading the barley, transferring the barley, and plastering the granary (grain heap) with mud. Foreman: Ur-Šakkan. Sealed tablet of Ur-Šara. Year: "The en-priest(ess) of Gaeš was installed" (Amar-Suen year 9). (Seal inscription:) Ur-Šara, scribe, son of Šeš-kalla.
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(u) 6(disz) gurusz u4 2(disz)-sze3 umma-ta du6-gesz-i3-ka-sze3 ma2 su3 gid2-da u4 2(disz)-sze3 sze gesz e3-a u3 ma2-a si-ga u4 1(disz)-sze3 i7 sal4-la-asz ma2 gid2-da u4 3(disz)-sze3 sze ba-al-la sze bala-a u3 guru7-a im-ur3-ra ugula ur-szakkan kiszib3 ur-szara2 mu# en# ga-esz# ba#-hun ur-szara2 dub-sar dumu szesz-kal-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Orient 55, 160 no. 6. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: WCMA 20.1.14 (Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P424381). 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.