Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/1, pl. 055, 1923-427
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the city of Umma, recording a delivery of animals — apparently a quantity of an item connected with 'kaskal' and seven doves or pigeons — brought into the royal palace storehouse. It names the supplier, the intermediary who conveyed the goods, and closes with the seal and identity of the responsible scribe, Ur-Šulpa'e, son of Lugal-kugani. Thousands of such workaday bookkeeping tablets survive from the bureaucratic economy of the Ur III state (c. 2100–2000 BCE), and this one is dated by a year-name commemorating the fashioning of Enlil's throne, likely a year of King Shulgi.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a delivery: 15 units of something described as 'kaskal' (the following word is broken away) and 7 doves, brought into the palace storehouse. The goods came from a man named Lugal-kuzu, and were conveyed by an official whose name is now lost to damage. The transaction was sealed by Ur-Shulpa'e. It is dated to the month called Dal, in the year 'the throne of Enlil was fashioned.' The tablet closes with the seal legend identifying Ur-Shulpa'e as the scribe, son of Lugal-kugani.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 kaskal-...[broken] 7 doves (tu-gur8) delivered into the palace, from Lugal-ku3zu, via ...[PN broken], under seal of Ur-[Šul]-pa-e3. Month: Dal. Year: 'The throne of Enlil was fashioned.' (Seal:) Ur-Šulpa-e3, scribe, son of Lugal-ku3ga-[ni].
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.
Engine notes
read from photo6 uncertain terms ↓
- kaskal — Literally 'road/journey'; in administrative contexts often refers to road-rations or travel-related commodities. The sign is partially broken in the transliteration and the photo.
- tu-gur8 — Standard Sumerian word for 'dove' or 'pigeon'; here likely a commodity being delivered. Reading plausible but sign cluster not fully verifiable from photo.
- kux(KWU147)-ra — The verb 'to enter (a storehouse)'; the sign KWU147 is a rare variant entry sign. Reading follows the transliteration; cannot independently confirm from photo at this resolution.
- iti dal — A month name in the Umma calendar; 'dal' month. The reading is consistent with known Umma administrative documents.
- gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2 — Standard restoration of a well-known Ur III year name: 'the year the throne of Enlil was fashioned.' Restoration is accepted in scholarship but the signs are broken/missing on the tablet.
- giri3 x-[...] — 'Via (the authority/foot of) PN': giri3 introduces an intermediary official. The personal name following is broken and cannot be read.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a small, rounded Ur III tablet (museum number 1923.427 visible on the edge label) with two faces. The obverse (upper image) preserves several lines of cuneiform in relatively shallow but readable impressions; the upper-left area shows some surface erosion and a loss of clay at the top edge, which is consistent with the '#' damage notations in the transliteration. The reverse (lower image) is more worn and partially damaged at the lower left, with fewer clearly legible signs. Visually I can confirm the presence of numerical signs in the first line that are consistent with 1(u) 5(disz), and cluster of signs in the middle of the obverse that are compatible with the E2-GAL sequence. The KISZIB3 and personal name signs toward the bottom of the obverse are partially readable but difficult to fully confirm at this resolution. The reverse shows what appear to be the DUB-SAR title signs and a concluding DUMU patronymic line, agreeing with the transliteration. The key uncertainties are: (1) kaskal with lacuna in line 1 — cannot verify the full sign from the photo; (2) tu-gur8 ('dove/pigeon') is a plausible reading but the sign cluster is not fully clear in the photo; (3) the giri3 line's second element is explicitly broken in both transliteration and photo; (4) the year formula restoration [gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2] is a standard Ur III year name and is not contradicted by the photo but cannot be confirmed due to damage.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3371 in / 1065 out tokens
Transliteration
1(u) 5(disz) kaskal#[] 7(disz) tu-gur8 e2-gal kux(KWU147)-ra ki# lugal-ku3-zu-ta giri3 x-[...] kiszib3 ur-[szul]-pa-e3# iti dal! mu gu#-za en-[lil2-la2 ba-dim2] ur-[szul-pa]-e3# dub-sar dumu lugal-ku3#-ga#-[ni]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/1, pl. 055, 1923-427. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ur-Nammu y14 — The throne of Enlil was fashioned based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P142795) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. 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.