Position in chronology
UET 3, 0690
About this tablet
A silver receipt from the city of Ur during the Ur III period (around 2100–2000 BCE), the great age of Sumerian bureaucracy. A man named Ahu-waqar acknowledges receiving 35 shekels of silver (about 290 grams) from Ur-guedina, earmarked for a single object connected with Lagamal — a deity worshipped in the region — most likely the fashioning of a divine image or emblem. It is a small but telling window into how temple furnishings were financed: precious metal moved between named individuals, with the transaction dated to the day and filed away.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: Ahu-waqar has received half a mina and five shekels of silver — about 290 grams — from Ur-guedina. The silver is designated for one Lagamal (that is, for a single image or emblem of the god Lagamal). Dated the 9th day of the harvest month; the year-name at the end is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine½ mina 5 shekels of silver, for one (image of) Lagamal — from Ur-guedina Ahu-waqar received. Month: "Harvest" (še-sag-ku), the 9th day having passed. Year: [... (year-name illegible)].
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1/2(disz) ma-na 5(disz) gin2 ku3-babbar la-ga-ma-al 1(disz)-sze3 ki ur-gu2-edin-na-ta a-hu-wa-qar szu ba-ti iti sze-sag11-ku5 u4 9(disz) ba-zal mu x x x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UET 3, 0690. 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: IM — (National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq) — from Ur (mod. Tell Muqayyar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P137012). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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