Position in chronology
Smithsonian 09
About this tablet
A day-record from the great livestock clearinghouse at Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), the accounting hub of the Ur III state around 2050 BCE. The animals — sheep and goats, some fattened on grain — belong to the foundation of Šulgi-simti, a queen of King Šulgi who ran her own religious and economic establishment, and they are booked out to named individuals, one lot earmarked for the daughter of an official. Thousands of such receipts survive, and together they let historians reconstruct the daily pulse of a royal economy animal by animal.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ledger entry for day 5 of the month Šu-ešša, in the year after the destruction of Kimaš: two grain-fattened sheep issued as the regular offering; one young goat for Kur-girini's daughter; two grain-fattened full-grown billy goats to Talim-Enlil; two young goats to Me-Ištar; and one female kid to Šu-Kubum. All of these came in as a delivery from Šulgi-simti's establishment, and the official Šulgi-ili signed for the animals.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 grain-fed sheep, (as) regular offering; 1 male kid, for the daughter of Kur-girini; 2 grain-fed full-grown billy goats: Talim-Enlil; 2 male kids: Me-Ištar; 1 female kid: Šu-Kubum. The 5th day of the month having passed, delivery of Šulgi-simti; Šulgi-ili took charge (of the animals). Month: Šu-ešša (7th month at Puzriš-Dagan); year following (the year) 'Kimaš was destroyed' (Šulgi year 47).
Our translation engine — Fable 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
2(disz) udu niga sa2-du11 1(disz) masz2 dumu-munus kur-giri3-ni-sze3 2(disz) masz2-gal niga ta2-lim-en-lil2 2(disz) masz2 me-esz18-dar 1(disz) asz2-gar3 szu-ku8-bu-um iti-ta u4 5(disz) ba-ra-zal mu-kux(DU) szul-gi-si2-im-ti szul-gi-i3-li2 i3-dab5 iti szu-esz5-sza mu us2-sa ki-masz ba-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Smithsonian 09. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: SI 303284 (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P332578). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.