Position in chronology
AuOr 24, 149
About this tablet
A small Ur III receipt from Irisagrig in central Iraq, written about 2035 BCE. Fifteen pigeons are handed over by a chief steward named Elumma'e and taken into the care of Ba'aga, an official whose job was fattening animals for the table or for offerings. The tablet is dated by the year-name commemorating King Šu-Suen's construction of the temple of Šara at Umma — the standard way Sumerian scribes fixed a date, and the reason such humble notes can still be placed within a year.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: fifteen pigeons delivered from the estate of Elumma'e, chief steward. Ba'aga, the fattener, has taken charge of the birds. Dated to the year King Šu-Suen of Ur built the temple of Šara at Umma.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 pigeons (tu-gur₄), from Elumma'e, the household administrator (šabra): delivery. Ba'aga, the animal-fattener, took (them) in charge. Year: Šu-Suen, king of Ur, built the temple of Šara in Umma.
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(u) 5(disz) tu-gur4 ki e-lum-ma-e szabra-ta mu-kux(DU) ba-a-ga kuruszda i3-dab5 mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 e2 szara2 umma-ka mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AuOr 24, 149. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Lamas 1 (private: Bolano, Lamas) — from Irisagrig (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P381738). 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.