Position in chronology
TSŠ 0835
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Šuruppak (modern Fara, southern Iraq), written around 2500 BCE. It records a small tally of cattle — an ox, a calf of some special designation, and a cow — distributed among or received from named individuals and institutions. The designations in the lower entries, including 'House Surpassing the Mountain' and 'Pure Great Place,' read more like temple or shrine names than personal names, suggesting livestock is being tracked across a handful of religious or administrative bodies. One of countless working documents that kept Šuruppak's institutional economy running day to day.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Seven animals in six entries. One ox is credited to Mes-IGI-NU2; one 'new-moon calf' — either a ritually designated animal or a calf belonging to someone of that name — is noted next; then one cow, with no keeper named. After that, two animals go to the 'House Surpassing the Mountain,' one to the 'Pure Great Place,' and one to 'Mother of AN-RU.' No explanation of purpose, no totals, no date — just quantities and names, the bare minimum a scribe needed to keep track.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[1] ox — Mes-IGI-NU2 1 amar-u4-sakar [new-moon calf; or: 1 for Amar-u4-sakar] 1 cow 2 — E2-kur-diri ["House Surpassing the Mountain"] 1 — Ki-gal-ku3[?] ["Pure Great Place"] 1 — Ama-AN-RU
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. 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
[1(asz@c)] gu4 mes-IGI-NU2 1(asz@c) amar-u4-sakar 1(asz@c) ab2 2(asz@c) e2-kur-diri 1(asz@c) ki-gal-ku3# 1(asz@c) ama-AN-RU
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC) ?) — TSŠ 0835. 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: Ist Š 0835 (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Šuruppak (mod. Fara) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P010916). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.