CUNES 52-04-081

~2042 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P325905

About this tablet

A short Ur III "letter-order" from Umma, around 2040 BCE — the ancient equivalent of a payment authorization slip. An official instructs a man named Ur-šukal to hand over one shekel of silver, lent at interest, to a man with the Akkadian name Ibni-GIN₂; the transaction was sealed by Inim-Šara, whose personal seal (naming him as son of Šara-zame and servant of the lumah-priest Ur-Emah) was rolled across the tablet and is copied out at the end. Documents like this show how credit and silver circulated through the temple and provincial bureaucracy of Umma, and the year-formula — the year after the installation of En-unugal as en-priestess/priest of Inanna — lets the transaction be dated to a single year of the reign of Amar-Suen.

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

Written in modern English

Message for Ur-šukal: pay out one shekel of silver — the interest-bearing loan silver — to Ibni-GIN₂. Authorized and sealed by Inim-Šara. Dated to the month of Dal, in the year following the one named for the installation of En-unugal as en-priest of Inanna. The seal impressed on the tablet reads: "Ur-Emah, the lumah-priest of [the god ...]: Inim-Šara, son of Šara-zame, is your servant."

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

To Ur-šukal speak: 1 shekel of silver, silver bearing interest — to Ibni-GIN₂ let him give it. Sealed tablet of Inim-Šara. Month: "Dal." Year after: "En-unugal (was installed) as en-priest of Inanna." (Seal inscription:) [Ur]-E[mah], the lumah-priest [of ...]: Inim-Šara, son of Šara-zame, is [your] servant.

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

ur-szu-kal-ra#?
u3-na-a-du11
1(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar
ku3 masz ga2-ga2
ib-ni-GIN2
he2#-na-ab-szum2#-mu
kiszib3 inim-szara2
iti dal
mu us2-sa en-unu6-gal inanna ba-hun
[ur]-e2-[mah]
lu2-mah [...]
inim-szara2
dumu szara2-za-me ARAD2-[zu]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUNES 52-04-081. 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 Amar-Suen y5 — Year after: En-unugal of Inanna installed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.

Attribution

Image: CUNES 52-04-081 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P325905). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

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.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

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.