Position in chronology
Nisaba 15, 0589
About this tablet
A one-line livestock receipt from Umma in southern Iraq, written in the first year of Ibbi-Suen, the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2028 BCE). A single ewe passes out of the hands of a woman named Šat-Eštar and into the charge of Lu-dingira, a herdsman responsible for the state flock. The clay was sealed by a scribe — also named Lu-dingira — whose father's name is broken away. Thousands of such notes survive: they are the bookkeeping sinew of one of the most tightly audited bureaucracies of the ancient world, where even one sheep was logged by name, month, and regnal year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt for one ewe, transferred from Šat-Eštar to the herdsman Lu-dingira, who now has custody of the animal. Dated to the month of first-fruits, in the year Ibbi-Suen came to the throne. Sealed by Lu-dingira the scribe, son of — the rest of the father's name is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 ewe, from Šat-Eštar; Lu-dingira, the herdsman, took it over (in charge). Month: nesag ("first-fruits"). Year: Ibbi-Suen (became) king. (seal inscription) Lu-dingira, scribe, son of [...].
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(disz) u8 ki sza-at-esz18-dar ta lu2-dingir-ra na-gada i3-dab iti nesag mu i-bi2-suen lugal lu2-dingir-ra dub-sar dumu [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Nisaba 15, 0589. 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: Adra 129 (private: Adra, Jawad, Heri, Lebanon) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P453941). 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.