Position in chronology
AuOr 31, 232 03
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III–period receipt tablet from Puzriš-Dagan (modern Drehem), the great livestock redistribution center run by the crown during the Third Dynasty of Ur. It records that one male donkey was handed over by a person named Abba-saga and taken into the charge of an official named Šu-Erra, dated by day, month, and a year-name commemorating the installation of the en-priest of Inanna at Uruk. Thousands of tablets exactly like this one survive from the Drehem archive, tracking the movement of individual animals in and out of royal herds with astonishing bureaucratic precision.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
On the 15th day of the month, one male donkey was transferred from Abba-saga into the custody of the official Šu-Erra. This happened in the month called 'u5-bi2-gu7' in the local Drehem calendar, during the year when the en-priest of Inanna was installed in Uruk — a year-name that lets us date the transaction to the reign of Shu-Sin. The tablet ends with a summary total of one animal, confirming the single entry recorded above.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 male donkey, day 15, from Abba-saga, Šu-Erra received (took in charge). Month: "u5-bi2-gu7" (Drehem calendar month), year: "the en-priest of Inanna was installed in Uruk." 1 (total).
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(disz) dusu2-nita2 u4 1(u) 5(disz)-kam ki ab-ba-sa6-ga-ta szu-er3-ra i3-dab5 iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu en-unu6-gal inanna unu-ga ba-hun 1(disz)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AuOr 31, 232 03. 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 464283 (private: anonymous, Barcelona, Spain) — from Puzriš-Dagan (mod. Drehem) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P464283). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.