Kress 244

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P481123

About this tablet

This is a small fragment of an Ur III–period land-survey or field-account tablet, the kind of routine bureaucratic record produced by the vast administrative apparatus of the Ur III state (c. 2100–2000 BCE) to track cultivated land and its yields. The surviving lines preserve area figures in the standard Sumerian units iku and eše3, along with a repeating rate ('11 each') that likely reflects a seed, yield, or labor allotment per unit of field. Almost all identifying context — location, official names, the crop or purpose of the account — is lost to breakage, leaving only the bare skeleton of a field-measurement entry.

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

Written in modern English

The tablet is badly broken. What survives is part of a field-measurement record: an area of land measured at 2 iku, with a rate of 11 (units per iku, most likely a seed or yield rate) attached to it. A subtotal follows ('among these'), listing a smaller plot of 1 eše3 belonging to some field, again with a rate of 11 each, followed by more text that is now illegible. The tablet ends with a fragmentary reference to a field described by the term 'u2-du,' whose meaning here — possibly a fodder or pasture designation — cannot be pinned down from what remains. The rest of the tablet, including whatever preceded and any reverse or further detail, is lost.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

1. [...]-ta ("from/by ...", broken) 2. [...] x (illegible sign, broken) 3. [...] x x [...] (two illegible signs, broken) 4. n(?) 2(iku) field-area(GAN2), 1(u) 1(disz)-ta ("11 each") 5. therein (sza3-ba): 1(esze3) field-area(GAN2), field(a-sza3) [...], 1(u) 1(disz)-ta ("11 each"), i3-[...] (broken) 6. field(a-sza3): u2-du-[...] (broken)

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 — Sonnet 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

[...]-ta
[...] x
[...] x x [...]
n 2(iku) GAN2 1(u) 1(disz)#?-[ta]
sza3-ba 1(esze3) GAN2 a-sza3# [x] 1(u) 1(disz)-ta i3-[x]
a-sza3 u2-du#?-[...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Kress 244. 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: Kress 244 (private: anonymous, Germany) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P481123). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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