LB 0233

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P388767

About this tablet

This small clay tablet is a routine Ur III–period administrative note from Girsu (modern Tello), one of thousands produced by the vast bureaucracy of the Sumerian state around 2000 BCE. It records a quantity of grain — one gur, one barig, and eight sila (roughly 90+ liters by later standard measures) — covering a span of months, and was authenticated with a seal impression. Its date formula anchors it precisely to the year the great livestock and redistribution center of Puzriš-Dagan (Drehem) was constructed, a well-known year name from the reign of King Šulgi. Tablets like this one are the mundane paperwork that let historians reconstruct the calendar, economy, and administrative reach of one of the world's first bureaucratic states.

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

Written in modern English

This is an account entry: 1 gur, 1 barig, and 8 sila of some commodity — the specific item is broken away — was recorded under a seal, with a tablet reference and a witness clause that is now too damaged to read fully. The record covers the period from the month of the Baba Festival through the month of Mušdu. It is dated to the year the temple-complex of Puzriš-Dagan was built — a fixed point in the Ur III calendar corresponding to a year late in King Šulgi's reign. Beyond the quantity and the date span, the details of the transaction (who received what, and why) are lost to breaks in the tablet.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1 gur, 1 barig, 8 sila3 of [...] (commodity broken) sealed [by ...]; tablet; before [...] [...] from month: "Festival of Baba"; to month: "Mušdu"; year: "the house of Puzriš-Dagan was built."

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.

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Transliteration

1(asz) 1(barig) 8(disz) sila3 x
kiszib3#? x DUB IGI x [...]
iti ezem-ba-ba6-ta
iti mu-szu-du8-sze3
mu e2 puzur4-da-gan# ba#-du3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — LB 0233. 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: LB 0233 (de Liagre Böhl Collection, Netherlands Institute for the Near East, Leiden, Holland) — from Girsu (mod. Tello) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P388767). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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AoF 30, 238,1