MVN 05, 003

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P114223

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the city of Umma, recording a disbursement of goods — ghee, reed, a metal or implement called gir2, and an aromatic substance — handed over by a person named Ur-lisi and received by a man named Dingira. The date formula places it in the year after Šulgi's campaign year commemorated as "Simurum was destroyed for the third time," anchoring the tablet firmly in the late Ur III period, roughly the 21st century BCE. Tablets like this were routine bookkeeping in the vast Ur III bureaucracy, tracking the movement of foodstuffs and materials between officials.

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

Written in modern English

This receipt records that Dingira took delivery of a batch of goods from Ur-lisi: 18 sila (about 18 liters) of ghee, 2 1/2 mina of fine reed, just under 2 mina of a metal item called gir2, and 8 sila of an aromatic substance. The transaction is dated to the sowing month, in the year following the one known as "the year Simurum was destroyed for the third time" — a standard Ur III dating formula tied to a royal military campaign. It's an ordinary storeroom or workshop disbursement record from the Umma administration.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1 ban2 8 sila3 ghee (butter fat), 2 1/2 mina of good/sweet reed, 2 mina minus 5 shekels of gir2, 8 sila3 gu4-KA-ru aromatic (šim), from Ur-lisi, Dingira received. Month: Šu-numun ("month of the seed"), year following the year: "Simurum was destroyed for the third time."

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(ban2) 8(disz) sila3 i3-nun
2(disz) 1/2(disz) ma-na gi du10-ga
2(disz) ma-na la2 5(disz) gin2 gir2
8(disz) sila3 gu4 KA-ru SZIM
ki ur-li9-[si4]-ta
dingir-ra
szu ba-ti
iti szu-numun
mu us2-sa a-ra2 3(disz)-kam si-mu-ru-um ba-hul

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — MVN 05, 003. 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 114223 (private: anonymous, unlocated) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P114223). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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