Position in chronology
HSS 68, 454
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the royal livestock depot at Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), the great redistribution center for animals under King Šulgi. It records the transfer of seven equids — one female donkey and six donkeys, described as a particular 'šu-gi4' type — from a provincial governor named Lu-banda to an official called Lugal-ura-ni, whose title 'shepherd of dogs' suggests he managed guard or herding dogs alongside livestock. The tablet also bears the seal legend of the official, identifying him as the servant of King Šulgi, and is dated by a year-name referring to the king's destruction of Anšan — anchoring the document to a specific moment in Šulgi's later reign.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This receipt logs the delivery of seven donkeys — one jenny and six others, of a type called 'šu-gi4' — sent from Lu-banda the governor to Lugal-ura-ni, an official in charge of dogs (and evidently livestock), who took formal custody of the animals. The transaction is dated to the year after Anšan was destroyed, one of King Šulgi's military conquests used here as a calendar marker. The tablet also carries the seal of Lugal-ura-ni, which names King Šulgi as 'mighty man, king of Ur' and identifies Lugal-ura-ni as his servant — a routine but revealing snapshot of how animals moved through the crown's administrative network at Puzriš-Dagan.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 female donkey, šu-gi4 (type); 6 donkeys, šu-gi4 (type) — from Lu-banda, the governor (ensi2); Lugal-ura-ni, the dog-herder, received (them). Year after: "Anšan was destroyed" (i.e., the year following Šulgi's destruction of Anšan). (Seal legend:) Šulgi, mighty man, king of Ur: Lugal-ura-[ni], the dog-herder, is your servant.
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(disz) eme6 szu-gi4 6(disz) dur3 szu-gi4 ki lu2-banda3 ensi2-ta lugal-ur2-ra-ni sipa ur i3-dab5 mu us2-sa an-sza-an ba-hul szul-gi nita kal-ga lugal uri5-ma lugal-ur2-[ra-ni] sipa ur ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — HSS 68, 454. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y36 — Year after: Anšan destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: SM 1911.10.411 (Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P407412). 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.