Position in chronology
MVN 03, 089
About this tablet
A short agricultural memo from Girsu in southern Iraq during the Sargonic (Akkadian) period, around 2300 BCE. It records one working plow unit: four oxen, their plow and two men assigned to it, a plow leader and an ox-handler. The scribe adds that this team should be entered on the main plow register, so this small tablet was a note used to update a larger account. It shows how an institutional estate tracked its draft animals, equipment and labour at the start of the farming season.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One plow team: four oxen and their plow, worked by U-da, who leads the plow team, and U-u, who handles the oxen. This team should be added to the main register of plow teams. The note is dated three days into the month of the Malt-Eating Festival.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 oxen, 2. 1 its plow; 3. 1 (man): U-da, 4. head of the plow (team); 5. 1 (man): U-u, 6. (driver) of the oxen. 7–8. To be added to the tablet of the plow (teams). 9. Month: 'Festival of eating malt' (ezem-munu-gu), 10. (when) 3(?) days had passed.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. 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.
Transliteration
4(asz@c) gu4 1(asz@c) apin-bi 1(asz@c) u2-da sag-apin-na 1(asz@c) u2-u2 gu4-ra im apin-na-ke4 dah-he-dam iti ezem-munu4 gu7 3(disz@t)? u4 ba-zal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MVN 03, 089. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P215741) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.