Position in chronology
Smithsonian 16
About this tablet
A routine receipt from the great administrative center of Umma in southern Iraq, written around 2048 BCE under King Šulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur. An official named Lu-Ninšubur took delivery of about 450 liters of barley from the state mill, issued by the official ARAD, to feed kunga-equids — prized donkey-onager hybrids used for pulling and hauling. The tablet is dated by the year following the king's destruction of the city of Urbilum (modern Erbil), and it carries the seal of the scribe Lugal-emaḫe, showing how even animal fodder moved through a fully accountable bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: 450 liters of barley, issued as feed for the ziggum team-equids. The grain came out of the mill-house stores and was disbursed by ARAD; Lu-Ninšubur signed for it. Dated to the month 'Barley at the harbor,' in the year after the campaign in which Urbilum was destroyed. Stamped with the seal of Lugal-emaḫe the scribe, son of Lugal-kugani.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban of barley (= 450 sila), fodder for the ziggum-equids, from the mill-house, from ARAD, Lu-Ninšubur received. Month: "Barley at the harbor" (Umma month 3). Year after: "Urbilum was destroyed" (Šulgi year 46). (Seal:) Lugal-emaḫe, the scribe, son of [Lugal-kugani].
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(asz) 2(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur sza3-gal kunga2 zi-gu5-um-ma e2-kikken-ta ki ARAD2-ta lu2-nin-szubur szu ba-ti iti sze-kar-ra-gal2-la mu us2-sa ur-bi2-i3-lum ba-hul lugal-e2-mah-e dub-sar dumu [lugal-ku3-ga-ni]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Smithsonian 16. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: SI 344991a (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P332579). 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.