Position in chronology
MVN 03, 012
About this tablet
This is a small Early Dynastic administrative tablet — a pillow-shaped clay 'lentil' of the kind scribes used for brief, everyday accounts around the mid-third millennium BCE. It records the distribution of raw wool and finished woolen garments to named individuals: a batch of wool assigned at a rate of two minas apiece under the responsibility of a man named Ur-lumma, and ten garments given to a person or official called 'the fisherman' (Enku). A further note about a hired laborer is now broken, and the entry closes with the month name Akiti, the seasonal festival month used in dating such records. It is a modest but telling fragment of the textile-economy paperwork that kept early Mesopotamian households and institutions running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short receipt or ledger entry: twenty wool-workers (or twenty units of wool) are recorded at two minas each, charged to Ur-lumma, son of PI-EN, who received the allotment. A second entry notes ten woolen garments handed over to a man called Enku, the fisherman. A third line mentions a hired laborer, but the rest of that entry is broken and illegible. The record is dated to the month of Akiti.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine20: wool-workers (lu2 siki), 2 minas (each). Ur-lumma, son of PI-EN: was given (to him). 10: mug-garments (tug2 mug), Enku, the fisherman: was given (to him). The hired man(s) (lu2 hun-ga2): [...] ... Month: Akiti.
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(u@c) lu2 siki ma-na 2(disz@t) ur-lum-ma dumu PI-EN an-na-szum2 1(u@c) tug2 mug#? en-ku6 an-na-szum2 lu2 hun-ga2 [...] x iti a2-ki-ti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — MVN 03, 012. 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 (P215677) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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