Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 224, Bod S 186
About this tablet
A debt memorandum from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dating to the reign of King Shulgi of Ur (the year-name marks his destruction of Anshan, around 2060 BCE). An official audit found a shortfall of about 860 liters of barley in the accounts of expenditures at Nippur, and the deficit was booked against a land registrar named ARAD, with the obligation that it be repaid. A scribe named Kaguna sealed the tablet on the registrar's behalf — a small, vivid glimpse of how the Ur III state tracked every liter of grain and held its officials personally liable for missing amounts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An audit has turned up a shortfall of 2 gur, 4 barig, and 2 ban of barley — roughly 860 liters, measured by the official royal standard — in the barley disbursement accounts at Nippur. The deficit is charged to ARAD and his colleagues, who serve as land registrars, and must be repaid. Since the registrar himself could not seal, the scribe Kaguna has sealed the document in his stead, and his sealed tablet is on file as the record of liability. Dated to the month Dal, in the year King Shulgi destroyed Anshan. The seal reads: Kaguna, scribe, son of Ur-[...], the rest of the father's name being lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 gur 4 barig 2 ban of barley, (measured by the) royal (gur), the deficit of the barley expenditures at Nippur; (charged to) ARAD — they being land registrars — it is to be repaid. On behalf of the land registrar, the sealed tablet of Kaguna is present. Month: Dal. Year: "Anshan was destroyed." (Seal:) Kaguna, the scribe, son of Ur-[...].
Our translation engine — Fable 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
2(asz) 4(barig) 2(ban2) sze gur lugal la2-ia3 sze zi-ga nibru-ka ARAD2-ra sa12-du5-me su-su-dam mu sa12-du5#-ka-sze3 kiszib3 ka-gu-na i3-gal2 iti dal mu an-sza-an ba-hul ka-gu-na dub-sar dumu ur-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 224, Bod S 186. 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 Šulgi y35 — Anšan destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Bod S 186 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P249090). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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