Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/2, pl. 093, 1935-541
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dated to the Ur III period (around 2100–2000 BCE). It records quantities of bricks — measured in the area units sar and gin — assigned to or associated with several locations: a village settlement, a mill-house, and a named individual called Agaga who was a musician. The tablet closes with a standard month and year date, the year in question being commemorated by the manufacture of a throne for the god Enlil. Such tablets are the routine paperwork of the highly centralized Ur III state bureaucracy, tracking construction materials down to the last fraction of a unit.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Translation · reference
Medium confidence16 sar 10 gin of bricks — Agaga, the musician; 20 sar of bricks inside the village settlement; 3 and 2/3 sar 5 gin inside the mill-house — the sailor/boatman: bricks carried (and) counted. [x] workmen [via?] Month: 'Temple of the sixth month' Year: the throne of Enlil was fashioned.
Source: engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation)
Translation · AI engine
read from photo16 sar 10 gin of bricks — Agaga, the musician; 20 sar of bricks inside the village settlement; 3 and 2/3 sar 5 gin inside the mill-house — the sailor/boatman: bricks carried (and) counted. [x] workmen [via?] Month: 'Temple of the sixth month' Year: the throne of Enlil was fashioned.
7 uncertain terms ↓
- a-ga-ga-a nar — Personal name Agaga followed by 'nar' (musician/singer). Unusual designation in a brick-accounting context; could be the person responsible for or receiving the bricks, or the label may carry over from a different entry type.
- e2-duru5 — Literally 'house of the village/settlement' — a rural or suburban settlement associated with an institution. Exact nature of this establishment at Umma is unclear.
- e2-kikken-na — Literally 'house of the mill' or 'mill-house/grinding house.' Standard Ur III institutional term for a flour-processing facility.
- ma2-lah5 — Usually 'sailor' or 'boatman'; here seems to function as an occupational label for the person overseeing or carrying out the brick transport, which is slightly unexpected.
- u3#-ma-ni [giri3?] — Partially broken. 'u3-ma-ni' may be a personal name or a collective noun for workmen/personnel. '[giri3?]' if correct would mean 'via the hand of' / 'under the authority of', a common administrative marker, but the sign is not secure.
- iti e2-iti-6(disz) — Month name literally 'temple of the sixth month' — a standard Umma calendar month designation.
- mu gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2 — Year formula: 'Year (in which) the throne of Enlil was fashioned.' This is a known Ur III year name, provisionally equated with a year of Amar-Sin or Šu-Sin, though exact synchronism depends on the archive context.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination: The photograph shows five views of a small, well-rounded clay tablet typical of Ur III Umma. The museum number '1935 541' is clearly painted in modern ink on the top edge (top image). The obverse (central large image) shows horizontal ruled lines with cuneiform wedges; the surface has moderate dark spotting (probably mineral deposits) but the wedge impressions are reasonably legible at this resolution. I can make out vertical and diagonal wedge clusters consistent with numerical notations and sign groups, broadly matching the transliteration's layout of numbers followed by SAR/GIN and SIG4 (brick) signs. The left and right side images show edge inscriptions; the right edge appears to carry a few signs that may correspond to the 'ma2-lah5' (sailor/boatman) line. The reverse (bottom large image) shows fewer lines, consistent with the shorter date formulae lines at the end of the transliteration. The final line 'mu gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2' is a well-known Ur III year formula — the year in which the throne (gu-za) of Enlil was fashioned — anchoring this tablet. The reading 'sig4# ga6-ga2 szid-da' (bricks carried and counted) is a standard phraseology in Ur III brick-delivery records. The personal name Agaga (a-ga-ga-a) with the title 'nar' (musician/singer) is unusual in a brickwork context but not unparalleled; it may denote the recipient or responsible party. The line '[x] u3#-ma-ni [giri3?]' remains partially broken and uncertain; 'u3-ma-ni' could be a workmen/personnel term or a personal name, and '[giri3?]' would indicate 'via' or 'under the authority of'. Cannot fully verify the broken lines from the photo at this resolution.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3533 in / 1263 out tokens
Why it matters
Transliteration
1(u) 6(disz) sar 1(u) gin2 sig4 a-ga-ga-a nar 2(u) sar sig4 sza3 e2-duru5 3(disz) 2/3(disz) sar 5(disz) gin2 sza3 e2-kikken-na ma2-lah5 sig4# ga6-ga2 szid-da [x] u3#-ma-ni [giri3?] iti# e2#-iti-6(disz) mu gu-za en-lil2-la2 ba-dim2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — AAICAB 1/2, pl. 093, 1935-541. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Ur-Nammu y14 — The throne of Enlil was fashioned based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P248616) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.