Position in chronology
MVN 05, 052
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative tablet from Umma, part of the routine bookkeeping of the state livestock economy around 2030 BCE. It records five animals — three ewes and two rams — struck off the books as losses (dead or perished stock), received or accounted for 'from' an individual, and formally sealed by the responsible official, Lu-kalla, son of the cattle-manager Ur-e'e. Thousands of such tablets survive from Umma and Puzriš-Dagan, forming a vast archive of the Ur III state's herding bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five animals — three ewes and two rams — are recorded as losses, that is, they died or were otherwise removed from the herd account. The entry is credited from a person named Šu-Eštar (the reading of this name is not fully certain), and the transaction is sealed by the official Lu-kalla. It is dated to the month called 'for Dumuzi' in the year that Šašru was destroyed (Šu-Sin's seventh regnal year). Lu-kalla, a scribe and the son of the cattle-manager Ur-e'e, is named as the responsible party.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 ewes, 2 rams, (counted as) losses (perished animals), from Šu-Eštar(?) — sealed by Lu-kalla. Month: "for Dumuzi" (month name), year: "Šašru was destroyed" (Šu-Sin year 7). Lu-kalla, scribe, son of Ur-e'e, the cattle-manager (šusz3).
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
3(disz) u8 2(disz) udu-nita2 ri-ri-ga-am3 ki szu-esz18?-dar?-ta kiszib3 lu2-kal-la iti dumu-zi-sze3 mu sza-asz-szu2-ru ba-hul lu2-kal-la dub-sar dumu ur-e11-e szusz3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 052. 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 114272 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114272). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.