Position in chronology
TMH 05, 165
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic account tablet from Nippur, recording livestock — eighteen sheep and a goat from one man, and further animals from a second — handed over as a mašdaria, a customary gift or contribution brought to a temple or ruler. The delivery is dated to the month of emmer and booked under a man named Dingir-ga'abe, with the animals issued 'from the palace.' It is a routine piece of institutional bookkeeping from around the twenty-sixth century BCE, showing how the palace at Nippur channelled flocks into ceremonial offerings.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Livestock delivery: eighteen sheep and one goat, credited to Lugal-TAR; three of something, plus two more single animals whose names are broken away, credited to Lugal-ennu. Dated to the emmer month. The whole consignment is a mašdaria — a customary offering — booked under Dingir-ga'abe, and the animals were released from the palace stores. Three of the entries in the middle of the list are damaged and cannot be read in full.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine18 sheep (20 minus 2), 1 goat — Lugal-TAR. 3 [...]-ga, 1 [...]-la, 1 [...] — Lugal-ennu. Month: Ziz-a (emmer month). The mašdaria-offering of Dingir-ga'abe. From the palace.
Our translation engine — Opus 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) la2 2(asz@c) udu 1(asz@c) masz2 lugal-TAR 3(asz@c) [...] x-ga 1(asz@c) [...]-la 1(asz@c) [...] lugal-en-nu iti ziz2-a masz2-da-re-a dingir-ga2-ab-e-kam e2-gal-ta
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — TMH 05, 165. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany (P020579) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.