NRVN 1, 142

~2072 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P122358

About this tablet

This small clay tablet from Nippur records a barley loan made during the Ur III period, roughly 2100–2000 BCE. Ur-Šulpa'e advanced a gur of barley to a man named Lu-Esikil, with the interest rate spelled out in the standard Mesopotamian units of gur, barig, and ban2. The document is dated by a year-name commemorating the destruction of the city of Simurrum, a well-known military campaign of the Ur III kings, and closes with the name of a second man, Lu-Eshikil son of Sipa-dari, likely a witness or the scribe overseeing the transaction. It is an ordinary piece of ancient credit paperwork — the kind of everyday record that shows how grain functioned as both food and currency in Sumerian society.

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

Written in modern English

Ur-Šulpa'e lent one gur of barley to Lu-Esikil, who agreed to repay it with interest — one gur, one barig, and four ban2 (roughly a third again on top of the loan, the standard Ur III rate). Lu-Esikil formally took receipt of the grain. The transaction is dated to the month of Ab-e, in the year that Simurrum was destroyed — a well-known Ur III military campaign used here simply to date the document. The record closes with the name Lu-Eshikil, son of Sipa-dari, presumably serving as witness or scribe to the loan.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1(aš) gur barley, interest: 1(aš) gur 1(barig) 4(ban2) per (gur) — from Ur-Šulpa'e, Lu-Esikil received. Month: Ab-e. Year: Simurrum was destroyed. Lu-Eshikil, son of Sipa-dari(?).

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.

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

1(asz) sze gur masz2 1(asz) gur 1(barig) 4(ban2)-ta
ki ur-szul-pa-e3-ta
lu2-e2-sikil
szu ba-ti
iti ab-e3
mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul-a
lu2#-esz3-sikil#
dumu sipa-da#?-ri2#?

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 142. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.

Attribution

Image: Ist Ni 00203 (cast: CBS 09752 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122358). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.

~2450 BCE

Stele of the Vultures

An early surviving historical monument that joins named rulers, a territorial dispute and religious oaths. It shows how a city-state turned victory into a lasting public claim, without establishing that this was the first recorded conflict.

~2100 BCE

Code of Ur-Nammu

Among the oldest surviving written law collections. It provides an early witness to royal justice and specified compensation, rather than a starting date for law itself.