Position in chronology
Akkadica 135/1, 100-101 14
About this tablet
A small Ur III receipt from Umma in southern Iraq, written in the first year of King Ibbi-Sîn (c. 2028 BCE). It records ten talents of manu-wood branches — a willow-like wood used for fuel, tools and basketry — connected with the town mill and a fine milled product, handed over from a man named E-urbidug and received by Nabasa. The transaction was booked against the bala, the rotating tax-and-labour obligation that each province owed the crown, and the tablet was sealed by the scribe Ku-Ninura, son of Na-silim, whose seal legend is copied out at the end. Documents like this are the routine bookkeeping that kept the last century of the Sumerian state running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: ten talents of manu-wood branches, together with fine milled ba-ba from the mill house, transferred out of E-urbidug's account. Nabasa took delivery. The transaction was sealed by Ku-Ninura and charged to the province's bala obligation. Dated to the year Ibbi-Sîn became king. The seal impression reads: Ku-Ninura, scribe, son of Na-silim.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 talents of manu-wood branches, (for) the mill-house: fine ba-ba (flour-porridge), from E-urbidug; Nabasa received (it). Sealed tablet of Ku-Ninura. Within the bala. Year: Ibbi-Sîn (is) king. (Seal inscription) Ku-Ninura, scribe, son of Na-[silim].
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
1(u) gu2 pa ma:nu e2-kikken2 ba-ba saga ki e2-ur2-bi-du10-ta na-ba-sa2 szu ba-ti kiszib3 ku3-nin-ur4-ra sza3 bala-a mu i-bi2-suen lugal# ku3-nin-ur4-ra dub-[sar] dumu na-[silim]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Akkadica 135/1, 100-101 14. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ibbi-Suen y1 — Ibbi-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: DMMA AA.TC.65 (Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480078). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.