NRVN 1, 082

~2072 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P122296

About this tablet

This is a small silver loan contract from Nippur, dated to the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the last king of the Ur III dynasty. A man named Lugal-magure borrowed 10 shekels of silver from Lu-Nanna at interest, and the transaction is dated by a year-name commemorating the destruction of the city of Simurrum — a campaign of Ibbi-Sin's early reign, around the time the Ur III state was beginning to face serious military pressure. Tablets like this one are everyday legal-economic records, but their year-names also serve historians as a chronological backbone for reconstructing the empire's final, turbulent years.

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

Written in modern English

Lugal-magure borrowed 10 shekels of silver from Lu-Nanna, with interest set at 5 shekels, reckoned at 1 shekel each. Lugal-magure formally received the loan. The document is dated to the sixth month, in the year when King Ibbi-Sin destroyed the city of Simurrum.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

10 shekels of silver, as a loan; interest: 5 shekels, at (the rate of) 1 shekel each; from Lu-Nanna, Lugal-magure received. Month: 'kin-inanna' (month VI); year: 'Ibbi-Sin (is) king' — year: Simurrum was destroyed.

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(u) gin2 ku3-<babbar> ur5-sze3
masz2 5(disz) gin2 1(disz) gin2-ta
ki lu2-nanna-ta
lugal-ma2-gur8-re
[szu] ba-ti
iti kin-inanna
mu i-bi2-suen lugal-e
mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — NRVN 1, 082. 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 00026 (cast: CBS 09716 ?) (Arkeoloji Müzeleri, Istanbul, Turkey) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P122296). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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