Position in chronology
Anonymous 472742
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Umma, recording a delivery of 1,020 bundles of reed bound into rope-tied bundles at a fixed rate (13 per larger bundle, 3 per workman) and stored in a granary or storehouse. Reed was a staple raw material in southern Mesopotamia, used for baskets, matting, roofing, and construction, so such texts tracked its harvest and allocation among laborers under a supervising steward. The document is dated by the year Šu-Sin destroyed the city of Šašrum (his seventh regnal year), and it was drawn up and sealed by the scribe Ur-Šara, son of Šeš-kalla.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet logs a shipment of 1,020 bundles of reed, tied up in bundles of 13, with each laborer handling 3 bundles at a time. The reed went into a storehouse, and the whole operation was overseen by the foreman Ur-gigir, the household steward. The transaction was certified with the seal of Ur-Šara. It's dated to the year King Šu-Sin destroyed the city of Šašrum, and the document was written up by Ur-Šara the scribe, son of Šeš-kalla.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(geš'u) 7(geš2) [= 1,020] bundles of reed; rope-bundles (kilib-ba), 13 each; per workman, 3 rope-bundles each; (into) the storehouse of Ḫi-abara; foreman: Ur-gigir, the household administrator (šabra); under seal of Ur-Šara. Year: "Šašrum was destroyed." Ur-Šara, scribe, son of Šeš-kalla.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(gesz'u) 7(gesz2) sa# gi# gu kilib-ba 1(u) 3(disz)-ta gurusz-e gu-kilib 3(disz)-ta ga2-nun HI-a-bar-ra ugula ur-gigir szabra kiszib3 ur#-szara2 mu sza-asz-szu2-ru ba-hul ur-szara2 dub-sar dumu szesz-kal-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Anonymous 472742. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y38 — Šaššuru destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 472742 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472742). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.