Anonymous 497561

~2046 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P497561

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III accounting tablet from Girsu recording the repayment of an outstanding grain debt. A man named Lu-Baba, son of Ur-saga, owed 14 gur of royal-measure barley; the tablet records that this deficit was made good, with Lu-bimu receiving the barley on behalf of Ur-bagara. The date formula ties the transaction to the year King Shulgi's forces destroyed the city of Kimaš — one of the standard year-names used across the Ur III empire's bureaucracy to date everyday documents like this one.

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

Written in modern English

This is a receipt: 14 gur of barley (measured by the royal standard) were handed over to settle an outstanding debt. The barley belonged to the account of Lu-Baba, son of Ur-saga, and came from Ur-bagara's holdings. Lu-bimu is recorded as the one who took receipt of the grain. The transaction is dated to the year that Kimaš was destroyed.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

High confidence

14 gur royal-measure barley — the deficit, repaid. (From) Lu-Baba, son of Ur-saga. From Ur-bagara, Lu-bimu received (it). Year: "Kimaš was destroyed."

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.

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Transliteration

1(u) 4(asz) sze gur lugal
la2-ia3 su-ga
lu2-ba-ba6 dumu ur-sa6-ga
ki ur-ba-gara2-ta
lu2-bi-mu
szu ba-ti
mu ki-masz ba-hul

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Anonymous 497561. 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 497561 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P497561). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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