Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 28
About this tablet
A small, badly worn administrative account from Ur in southern Iraq, written in the Early Dynastic period (early third millennium BCE). It lists tiny quantities of goods or animals — including young livestock and, notably, an entry mentioning Dilmun, the Gulf trading land in the region of modern Bahrain. Even in this battered state, the tablet is a witness to the very early paperwork of Mesopotamian trade and husbandry, and to Ur's connections down the Persian Gulf.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short inventory, most of it now eaten away by time. What survives reads like a ledger: two young animals — apparently of top grade — then one unit of something ending in what may be the word for 'egg', one unit of an item whose name is broken off, two units connected with Dilmun (the Gulf trading region), and two more units of something now lost. A final damaged line carries a divine or sky sign and one more sign no one can identify. The rest of the tablet is blank or too eroded to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 2 (units) — young animal(s) of Nirah(?), first quality(?) 1 (unit) — ... (two illegible signs) ... egg(?) 1 (unit) — MU [...] 2 (units) — Dilmun 2 (units) — [...] ... AN ... (unidentified archaic sign)
Our translation engine — Fable 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(N01@f)# , amar-nirahx(UET2_153)# sag#? 1(N01@f) , x x NUNUZ#? 1(N01@f) , MU [...] 2(N01@f) , DILMUN 2(N01@f) [...] x x AN# UET2_165#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 28. 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: British Museum, London, UK (P449015) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.