Position in chronology
Smithsonian 27
About this tablet
A labor account from the great agricultural province of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the 7th year of King Šu-Suen of the Ur III dynasty (about 2030 BCE), the year named for the destruction of the land of Zabšali. It records field-preparation work — hoeing one field and clearing thorny scrub from another — converting the area worked into workdays at fixed daily quotas. Two named officials supervised the crews, and the scribe Da'aga rolled his personal seal over the tablet to certify the account. Documents like this show the Ur III state's remarkable bureaucratic precision: every day of a laborer's work was calculated, quota-checked, and archived.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Work report: 500 sar of field were hoed at the standard rate of 5 sar per man per day, which comes to 100 workdays; that was in the Greater A'uda field. Another 1,395 sar were cleared of thornbushes at 15 sar per man per day, totaling 93 workdays, in the E-girgilu field. The oxen crews were supervised by Lugal-inim-gina, with Šara-kam as foreman. The account was certified under the seal of Da'aga, the scribe, son of Ur-geš-šaga, in the year the land of Zabšali was destroyed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine500 sar (of field) hoed, at 5 sar (per workday) each — its labor: 100 days. Field: A'uda-gula ("Greater A'uda"). 1,395 sar of diḫ-thorns cut, at 15 sar (per workday) each — its labor: 93 days. Field: E-girgilu. Oxen overseer: Lugal-inim-gina. Foreman: Šara-kam. Sealed tablet of Da'aga. Year: "The land of Zabšali was destroyed." (Seal:) Da'aga, scribe, son of Ur-geš-šaga.
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
8(gesz2) 2(u) sar al 5(disz) sar-ta a2-bi u4 1(gesz2) 4(u)-kam a-sza3 a-u2-da gu-la 2(gesz'u) 3(gesz2) 1(u) 5(disz) sar dih3 ku5-a 1(u) 5(disz) sar-ta a2-bi u4 1(gesz2) 3(u) 3(barig)-kam a-sza3 e2-gir-gi4-lu nu-banda3-gu4 lugal-inim-gi-na ugula szara2-kam kiszib3 da-a-ga mu ma-da za-ab-sza-li ba-hul da-a-ga dub-sar dumu ur-gesz-sza3-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Smithsonian 27. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: SI 344991l (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P332586). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.