TMH NF 1-2, 334

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P134645

About this tablet

A small administrative tablet from Nippur in southern Iraq, dating to the reign of Amar-Suen of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2040 BCE). What survives is essentially the date — the month of Kin-Inanna — together with a seal inscription naming the king with his full royal titles, Lugal-melam the governor of Nippur, and a scribe attached to the gipar, a sacred residence within the temple precinct. Seals like this were the ancient equivalent of an official signature, tying a routine transaction to the chain of authority running from the king down through the provincial governor to a working scribe.

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

Written in modern English

Dated to the month of Kin-Inanna. Stamped with an official seal that reads: 'Amar-Suen, mighty king, king of Ur, king of the four quarters of the world; Lugal-melam, governor of Nippur; so-and-so, scribe of the treasury, son of [...]-Enlil, scribe of the gipar of Nippur, servant of [...].' In modern terms, it is the date line and official stamp of a government document — the record of the transaction itself is lost or was never on this piece, but the signature block survives, identifying the reigning king, the provincial governor, and the clerk who handled the paperwork.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Month: Kin-Inanna (the 6th month at Nippur). (Seal legend:) [Amar-]Suen, [mighty king], [king of Ur], [king] of the four quarters of heaven, Lugal-melam, governor of Nippur; [PN], scribe of the treasury(?), son of [...]-Enlil, scribe of the gipar of Nippur, servant of [...].

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 — 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

iti kin-[inanna]
[amar-]suen#
[lugal kal-ga]
[lugal uri5]-ma
[lugal] an ub-[da] limmu2-ba
lugal-me#-[lam2]
ensi2
nibru
dub#-sar za3#-ga
dumu [...]-en-lil2
dub-[sar] ge6-par4#
nibru-ka
ARAD2 [x] x [x]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — TMH NF 1-2, 334. 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: HS 1334 (Hilprecht Collection, University of Jena, Germany) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P134645). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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