Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 55
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from archaic Ur, written in the Early Dynastic period (early third millennium BCE) and excavated by Woolley's expedition (its Ur field number, U.18377, is still inked on the edge). It is a simple tally: quantities of a reed-bundle unit are booked against seven named individuals — men with pious Sumerian names like Amar-abzu ('Calf of the Abzu') and En-abzusi. Texts like this are among the earliest bureaucratic records from Ur, showing writing used for everyday distribution or collection long before it recorded literature.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a distribution list. Amar-abzu gets 2 bundles; Utu-ursag gets 7; Sag-ayada gets 5; one entry is broken away where the tablet's corner is lost; Pabilga gets 9; Šubur-la, who holds an official post, gets 2; and En-abzusi receives the largest share, 12. A final line of signs — mentioning gates and other terms — is too obscure to read with confidence, and probably summarized or classified the transaction. In total, at least 37 units changed hands under this record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 2 (units of) gi (reed-bundles) — Amar-abzu; 7 — Utu-ursag; 5 — Sag-ayada; [...] ... SAG?-DA (entry broken); 9 — Pabilga; 2 — Šubur-la, the PA-A official(?); 12 — En-abzusi. (final line, signs of uncertain reading:) ... A, KA2 (gate?), GIR, DIM3-DIM3, A, A?, KA2, SAL, KA2 ...
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)# , gi amar-abzu 7(N01@f) , utu-ur-sag 5(N01@f) , sag#-aya2-da [...] SAG#? DA 9(N01@f) , pa-bilx(|NE.PAP.UET2_377|)-ga 2(N01@f) , szubur!-la PA-A 1(N14@f) 2(N01@f) , en-abzu-si x A KA2 GIR DIM3 DIM3 A A? KA2 SAL KA2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 55. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449042) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.