TMH 05, 033

~2400 BCE·Early Dynastic·P020447

About this tablet

A small account from Nippur in the mid-third millennium BCE, recording deliveries of fish to the city's shrine and to a series of gods — Ninurta, the mother-goddess Dingirmah, Enki, the healing goddess Nintinuga, An and the sun-god Utu — along with a few individuals. It belongs to the earliest administrative archive of Nippur, the religious capital of Sumer, and shows the temple economy at work: counted portions of fish going to cult images as offerings. The short entries and repeated marker sign make it a typical offering ledger of the period.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Four fish go to the shrine. Four each are set aside for Ninurta, for Dingirmah, for Enki (marked as allotted), and for Nintinuga (probably also marked). A damaged line seems to give two for An. Then two each for Enlil-zi, for En-ur, for the sun-god Utu (marked), and for Irda (marked). The back of the tablet is blank.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Obverse 4 fish, to the shrine; 4 (for) Ninurta; 4 (for) Dingirmah; 4 (for) Enki — PAP; 4 (for) Nintinuga — [PAP?]; [...] 2(?) (for) An(?) — PAP(?); 2 (for) Enlil-zi; 2 (for) En-ur; 2 (for) Utu — PAP; 2 (for) Irda — PAP. Reverse: uninscribed.

Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

4(asz@c) ku6
esz3-sze3!(TUG2)
4(asz@c) nin-urta
4(asz@c) dingir-mah
4(asz@c) en-ki PAP
4(asz@c) nin-tin-ugx(|EZENxHAL|)-ga [PAP?]
[x] 2(asz@c)#? an? PAP?
2(asz@c) en-lil2-zi
2(asz@c) en-ur
2(asz@c) utu PAP
2(asz@c) ir-da PAP

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 033. 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: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P020447) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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