Position in chronology
NRVN 1, 143
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Nippur, recording a barley loan repayment with interest. A man named Ilalla (also spelled Ilala) collected 2 barig 3 ban2 of barley as interest from Ur-Šulpa'e, calculated at a standard rate, on the 7th day of the month Ab-e in the year Simurrum was destroyed — a year-name commemorating a royal military campaign in the Zagros region, most likely under king Šulgi. Texts like this were routine bookkeeping in the temple and palace economy of Nippur, where grain loans and their interest payments were carefully tracked, down to the day.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a receipt: Ur-Šulpa'e paid 2 barig and 3 ban2 of barley as interest on a loan, calculated at a rate of 1 gur, 1 barig, 4 ban2 per unit. Ilalla collected the payment on the 7th day of the month Ab-e, in the year that Simurrum was destroyed. The document closes by identifying Ilalla (here spelled Ilala) as the son of Aba.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 barig 3 ban2 barley, interest, at the rate of 1 gur, 1 barig, 4 ban2 each; from Ur-Šulpa'e, Ilalla received (it). Month: Ab-e, 7th day passed. Year: Simurrum was destroyed. Ilala, son of Aba.
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
2(barig) 3(ban2) sze masz2 1(asz) gur 1(barig) 4(ban2)-ta ki ur-szul-pa-e3-ta i3-la2-la2 szu ba-ti iti ab-e3 u4 7(disz) ba-zal mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul-a i3-la-la dumu a-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 143. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Ist Ni 00193 (cast: CBS 09753 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122359). 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.