Position in chronology
MVN 05, 027
About this tablet
This is a short Ur III administrative memorandum from Umma, part of the vast bureaucratic archive that recorded labor and personnel movements across the province. It lists a handful of individuals — some counted in fractional units, suggesting part-time or shared labor assignments — together with the month and year in which their service began, tracked using the local dating formula of named year-events (such as the installation of a priestess or the fashioning of Enlil's throne). The closing lines record that one Lu-kalla, a scribe and son of a cattle-manager named Ur-e'e, formally took charge of these people or their labor obligations, transferring responsibility away from an official named Lugal-muma'ag. Texts like this are the everyday paperwork of the Ur III state's intensive labor-management system.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record tracks a few workers and their fractional labor shares, each dated by the month and year their assignment began. Lugal-nig-lagare is counted as a half-unit starting in the harvest month; an entry for 'the field of Balula' (possibly a person's name) is counted as one full unit, dated to the month of Dumuzi in the year the throne of Enlil was fashioned. Ur-Utu and Ur-sisa are each counted as half-units, both starting in the harvest month, in the year the priestess En-mahgalana was installed. The document closes by noting that responsibility for these was transferred from Lugal-muma'ag and taken over by Lu-kalla. Lu-kalla, the scribe who wrote this tablet, identifies himself as the son of Ur-e'e, a cattle-manager.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1/2 (unit): Lugal-nig-lagare; from month: “Harvest” (iti sze-sag11-ku5); 1 (unit): the field(?) of Balula; month: “Dumuzi”; year: “the throne of Enlil was fashioned”; 1/2 (unit): Ur-Utu; 1/2 (unit): Ur-sisa; from month: “Harvest” (iti sze-sag11-ku5); year: “En-mahgalana was installed”; from Lugal-muma’ag; Lu-kalla took in charge (received); Lu-kalla, the scribe, son of Ur-e’e, the cattle-manager (šušš3).
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
1/2(disz) lugal-nig2-lagar-e iti sze-sag11-ku5-ta 1(disz) a-sza3 ba-lu5-la iti dumu-zi mu gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2-ta 1/2(disz) ur-utu 1/2(disz) ur-si2-sa3 iti sze-sag11-ku5-ta mu en-mah-gal-an-na ba-hun ki lugal-mu-ma-ag2-ta lu2-kal-la i3-dab5 lu2-kal-la dub-sar dumu ur-e11-e szusz3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 027. 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: Anonymous 114247 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114247). 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.