Position in chronology
UT 1599-27
About this tablet
A barley receipt from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of King Šulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2060 BCE). An official named Lugal-gu'ene takes delivery of three gur of barley — roughly 900 liters — from Ur-Lisi, who was the governor of Umma, to supply the annual sowing festival held in the month named after it. Curiously, the scribe wrote the entry out twice, the second time breaking off mid-line — perhaps a draft, a correction, or practice on the same tablet. Such receipts are the routine paperwork of one of history's most thoroughly documented bureaucracies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: Lugal-gu'ene has received 3 royal gur of barley (about 900 liters) from Ur-Lisi, allocated as the official requisition for the Sowing Festival. Dated to the year Karhar was destroyed for the third time. The entry is then written out a second time — 3 royal gur of barley, provisions for the festival of the sowing month, from Ur-Lisi, received by Lugal-gu'ene — but this second copy trails off in a broken line and was never completed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur of barley (by the) royal (measure), requisition (nig-dab) for the festival of Šu-numun; from Ur-Lisi Lugal-gu'ene received. Year: "For the third time Karhar was destroyed." 3 gur of barley (by the) royal (measure), goods for the festival of the month Šu-numun; from Ur-Lisi Lugal-gu'ene Lugal-gu-... [broken].
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
3(asz) sze gur lugal nig2-dab5 ezem szu-numun ki ur-li9-si4-ta lugal-gu2-en-e szu ba-ti mu a-ra2 3(disz)-kam-asz karx(GAN2)-har ba-hul 3(asz) sze gur lugal nig2 ezem iti szu-numun ki ur-li9-si4-ta lugal-gu2-en-e lugal-gu2-x-x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UT 1599-27. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: UT 1599-27 (Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480669). 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.