UT 1599-27

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P480669

About this tablet

A barley receipt from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of King Šulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2060 BCE). An official named Lugal-gu'ene takes delivery of three gur of barley — roughly 900 liters — from Ur-Lisi, who was the governor of Umma, to supply the annual sowing festival held in the month named after it. Curiously, the scribe wrote the entry out twice, the second time breaking off mid-line — perhaps a draft, a correction, or practice on the same tablet. Such receipts are the routine paperwork of one of history's most thoroughly documented bureaucracies.

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

Written in modern English

Receipt: Lugal-gu'ene has received 3 royal gur of barley (about 900 liters) from Ur-Lisi, allocated as the official requisition for the Sowing Festival. Dated to the year Karhar was destroyed for the third time. The entry is then written out a second time — 3 royal gur of barley, provisions for the festival of the sowing month, from Ur-Lisi, received by Lugal-gu'ene — but this second copy trails off in a broken line and was never completed.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

3 gur of barley (by the) royal (measure), requisition (nig-dab) for the festival of Šu-numun; from Ur-Lisi Lugal-gu'ene received. Year: "For the third time Karhar was destroyed." 3 gur of barley (by the) royal (measure), goods for the festival of the month Šu-numun; from Ur-Lisi Lugal-gu'ene Lugal-gu-... [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 — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

3(asz) sze gur lugal
nig2-dab5 ezem szu-numun
ki ur-li9-si4-ta
lugal-gu2-en-e
szu ba-ti
mu a-ra2 3(disz)-kam-asz karx(GAN2)-har ba-hul
3(asz) sze gur lugal
nig2 ezem iti szu-numun
ki ur-li9-si4-ta
lugal-gu2-en-e
lugal-gu2-x-x

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — UT 1599-27. 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: UT 1599-27 (Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P480669). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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