NRVN 1, 151

~2028 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P122367

About this tablet

This is a small clay loan note from Nippur, written near the start of the reign of Ibbi-Suen, the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2025 BCE). A man named Nur-Suen borrowed three gur of barley — roughly 900 liters — from Ur-Šulpa'e, at the standard Ur III interest rate of one-third (1 barig 4 ban per gur). The scribe dated it precisely: the eighth day of the month Udru, in the year the king sacked the mountain town of Simurrum. Documents like this are the ordinary credit paperwork of Sumerian economic life, and their year-formulae double as a chronology of royal military campaigns.

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

Written in modern English

Nur-Suen has taken out a barley loan of 3 gur from Ur-Šulpa'e, on interest at the usual rate of 1 barig 4 ban on every gur — one third. The loan was received on the 8th day of the month of Udru, in the year King Ibbi-Suen destroyed Simurrum. The last two lines, which would have named a witness and his father, Zaza-[...], are damaged and only partly readable.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

3 gur of barley, as an interest-bearing loan; interest: per 1 gur, 1 barig 4 ban; from Ur-Šulpa'e, Nur-Suen has received (it). Month: Udru, day 8 having passed. Year: Ibbi-Suen the king destroyed Simurrum. (Witnesses/remainder:) [PN] ...... son of Zaza-[...].

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

3(asz) sze gur ur5-sze3
masz2 1(asz) gur 1(barig) 4(ban2)-ta
ki ur-szul-pa-e3-ta
nu-ur2-suen
szu ba-ti
iti udru u4 8(disz) ba-zal
mu i-bi2-suen lugal-e si-mu-ru-um mu-hul
x-x-[x]
dumu za-za-x [...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 151. 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 00281 (cast: CBS 09715 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122367). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

The oldest surviving law code in human history. The principle that the state — not the wronged family — defines and enforces justice begins here.