CUNES 52-04-084

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P325908

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III-period Sumerian letter-order, a private administrative note sent by one person to instruct another (here addressed as Suen-našir) about the handling of goods. Such letters typically open with the formula 'To PN, speak!' and then give brief, businesslike instructions — here concerning a delivery of bitumen unloaded from a boat, some further quantity moved to a storehouse, and possibly containers and coniferous wood, ending with a command to hand something over. The tablet is badly broken in its middle section, so only the opening formula and scattered later phrases survive clearly.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

A note to Suen-našir: 'Say to him — two gur and one barig of bitumen have been unloaded from the boat, and two barig (of something) have gone to the storehouse.' Several lines are too damaged to read. Toward the end the text mentions some number of containers (mirza-vessels?) and what may be fir or pine wood, and closes with an instruction to hand something over or deliver it. The middle of the tablet is lost, so the full sequence of instructions cannot be reconstructed.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

To Suen-našir — speak! 2 gur 1 barig of bitumen, removed from the boat, 2 barig(?) ... to the house, [...] ... ... ... [...]-...-... [...] ... ... [...] n mirza-vessels(?) [...] ... fir-wood(?) ... ... hand (it) over! / give (it)!

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Sonnet 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

suen-na-s,i-ir
u3-na-a-du11
2(asz)# 1(barig)#? gur esir2 ma2#-ta zi-la
2(barig)#? x e2-ra
[...] x x x
[x]-x-x [x]
x x [x]
n mi-ri2-za [x] x u3-suh5? x
szu x-ma-ab#

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUNES 52-04-084. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: CUNES 52-04-084 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P325908). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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