NRVN 1, 133

~2028 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P122349

About this tablet

A small barley loan from Nippur, drawn up in the first year of Ibbi-Suen, the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2028 BCE). A man named In-ta, son of Ur-Ninurta, borrows one gur of barley — about 300 liters — from Ur-Šulpa'e, at an interest rate of 1 barig 4 ban per gur, that is one-third of the principal, the standard Ur III rate for grain. The date is given to the day: the tenth day of the eighth month. Documents like this one are the ordinary credit paperwork of a Sumerian city, and the loan of grain at a third interest was routine enough that scribes wrote it in a fixed formula.

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

Written in modern English

One gur of barley (roughly 300 liters) lent at interest, the rate being 1 barig 4 ban per gur — a third of the principal. In-ta received it from Ur-Šulpa'e. Dated the tenth day of the eighth month, in the year Ibbi-Suen became king. The borrower is identified at the end as In-ta, son of Ur-Ninurta.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1 gur of barley, as an interest-bearing loan; interest: per 1 gur, 1 barig 4 ban of barley. From Ur-Šulpa'e In-ta has received (it). Month: apin-du-a (Month VIII). The 10th day having passed. Year: Ibbi-Suen is king. (seal / addendum) In-ta, son of Ur-Ninurta.

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.

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Transliteration

1(asz) sze gur ur5-sze3
masz2 1(asz) gur 1(barig) 4(ban2)-ta
ki ur-szul-pa-e3-ta
in-ta
szu ba-ti
iti apin-du8-a
u4 1(u) ba-zal
mu i-bi2-suen lugal-am3
in-ta
dumu ur-nin-urta

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 133. 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: Ist Ni 00262 (cast: CBS 09724 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122349). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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