Position in chronology
NRVN 1, 068
About this tablet
A small legal tablet from Nippur, written in the very first year of Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the Third Dynasty of Ur (about 2028 BCE). Two men, Adda-kalla and Ubar, take delivery of a gur of barley — the wage fund for hired laborers, reckoned at 5 sila a man — and swear a formal oath by the king's name before Ur-sukkal that they will clear a plot of 20 sar. Three witnesses are named, the month and year are recorded, and the last two lines give the name and patronymic of Adda-kalla, most likely from the seal that authenticated the deal. It is exactly the sort of routine labour contract that shows how the Ur III state's obsession with written accountability reached down to a single work gang.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One gur of barley is handed over as the pay for hired workers, calculated at five sila per man, for the month named in the damaged line. In return, a plot of twenty sar is to be cleared. Adda-kalla and Ubar swore by the king's name, before Ur-sukkal, that they would do it. Three witnesses stand behind the agreement: Ur-tumal, Lu-Enlila, and Adda. Dated to the harvest month, in the year Ibbi-Sin became king. Signed: Adda-kalla, son of Ur-ni-[...], whose father's name is broken off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur of barley, the wages [of hired men], at 5 sila each, month: ...... , delivered; to clear (an area of) 20 sar. Adda-kalla and Ubar swore by the name of the king to Ur-sukkal. 1: Ur-tumal, 1: Lu-Enlila, 1: Adda — are its witnesses. Month: Še-sag-ku (harvest month). Year: Ibbi-Sin [became] king. (seal / final entry) Adda-kalla, son of Ur-ni-[...].
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(asz) sze gur a2# [lu2 hun] 5(disz) sila3-ta iti x-x-x se3-ga# 2(u) sar du8-de3 ad#-da-kal-la u3 u-bar ur-sukkal#-ra# mu lugal-bi in#-pa3 1(disz) ur-tum-al 1(disz) lu2-en-lil2-la2 1(disz) ad-da lu2#-inim-ma-bi iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu i-bi2-suen lugal-[am3] ad-da-kal-la dumu ur2-ni-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 068. 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 00457 (cast: CBS 09720 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122281). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
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.
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.