Position in chronology
Anonymous 481003
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III barley receipt from around 2100–2000 BCE, likely from Umma. A man named Dada received a quantity of barley (1 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban2, measured by the royal standard) from another man, Ur-lisi, and the transaction is explicitly tied to a settled or 'returned' legal claim — the kind of note Ur III scribes added when a prior debt, dispute, or counter-claim had been resolved. The year name anchors it to the year following the installation of the en-priest of Eridu, a known Ur III dating formula. The tablet breaks off after Dada's name is repeated, so whatever follows (perhaps a witness or further clause) is lost.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Dada received 1 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban2 of barley (by the royal measure) from Ur-lisi. The transaction is recorded as settling a previously disputed or returned claim — essentially closing out an old account between the two men. It's dated to the year after the installation of the en-priest of Eridu. The tablet then repeats Dada's name and breaks off; the rest of the text, including whatever came after, is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur 2 barig 3 ban2 barley, royal measure — the reclaimed claim (returned account) — from Ur-lisi, Dada received. Year after: “the en-priest of Eridu was installed.” Dada [...] ... x x AN [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz) 2(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur lugal inim gur-ra ki ur-li9-si4-ta da-da-a szu ba-ti mu us2-sa en eridu ba-hun-ga2 da-da-a# [...] DU x x AN [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Anonymous 481003. 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).
Attribution
Image: Anonymous 481003 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P481003). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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