Position in chronology
TMH 05, 103
About this tablet
A small oval clay receipt from Nippur, written in the Early Dynastic period, recording textiles handed out to two named men. Ur-Idda gets a modest pair of garments; Lugal-igi-il receives forty — twenty thin bar-cloths and twenty aktum-garments — which suggests he was collecting a bulk consignment rather than a personal issue. The goods came out of the stores of the estate overseer, and the scribe dated the transaction to Ne-ne-gar, the fifth month of the Nippur calendar, when fires were lit for the dead. Cloth was one of the great wealth-goods of early Mesopotamia, and tablets like this are the paperwork behind that industry.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Textile issue: two ḫala'um garments and two aktum garments to Ur-Idda; twenty thin bar-cloths and twenty aktum garments to Lugal-igi-il. The goods were released from the estate overseer's stores and handed over to him. Recorded in the month of Ne-ne-gar.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 ḫala'um-garments, 2 aktum-garments — Ur-Idda; 20 bar-sal garments (thin bar-cloths), 20 aktum-garments — Lugal-igi-il. From the overseer of the household it was given to him. Month: Ne-ne-gar (fifth month).
Our translation engine — Opus 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
2(asz@c) tug2 ha-la-um 2(asz@c) tug2 aktum ur-i7-da 2(u@c) tug2 bar!(ASZ) sal4 2(u@c) tug2 aktum lugal-igi-il2 ki ugula-e2-ta an-na-szum2 iti ne-ne-gar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 103. 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 (P020517) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-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.