NRVN 1, 012

~2028 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P122225

About this tablet

A small silver transaction on a clay tablet from Nippur, dated to the very first year of Ibbi-Sîn — the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, around 2028 BCE. A man named E-nesage takes ten shekels of silver (roughly 83 grams) from Ur-Bilgi, and the closing lines name En-esage, son of En-šakuge, presumably the responsible party or seal-owner standing behind the deal. It is ordinary private paperwork of the kind that fills the Nippur archives, and its date formula places it at the opening of a reign that would end with the collapse of the Ur empire.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Receipt for ten shekels of silver. E-nesage took the money from Ur-Bilgi; the second line, which apparently described the silver or its purpose further, is damaged and cannot be read with confidence. Dated to the sixth month, in the year Ibbi-Sîn became king. Signed for: En-esage, son of En-šakuge.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

10 shekels of silver, […] edin daḫ ri u (uncertain — the second line resists a secure reading), from Ur-Bilgi E-nesage received. Month: kin-Inanna (sixth month), Year: "Ibbi-Sîn is king" (accession year). En-esage, son of En-šakuge.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Opus 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

1(u) gin2 ku3-babbar
[x] edin dah ri u3
ki ur-bil:gi-ta
e2-ne-sag-e
szu ba-ti
iti kin!-inanna
mu i-bi2-suen lugal-am3
en-e-sag-e
dumu en-sza3-ku3-ge

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 012. 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). [year-name] Dated to Ibbi-Suen y1 — Ibbi-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.

Attribution

Image: Ist Ni 00087 (cast: CBS 09721 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122225). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

An early surviving historical monument that joins named rulers, a territorial dispute and religious oaths. It shows how a city-state turned victory into a lasting public claim, without establishing that this was the first recorded conflict.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

Among the oldest surviving written law collections. It provides an early witness to royal justice and specified compensation, rather than a starting date for law itself.