Position in chronology
CUSAS 15, 067
About this tablet
A short loan or debt contract from the city of Gādibê, written in 522 BCE during the seventh and final year of the Persian king Cambyses II. A named debtor owes just under three shekels of silver, to be repaid in the city of Gādibê; several witnesses and a temple official seal the transaction. The tablet is remarkable for being precisely datable to the reign of Cambyses — son of Cyrus the Great and conqueror of Egypt — and illustrates the continuous functioning of Babylonian commercial and temple institutions under early Achaemenid rule.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Someone owes a debt of just under three shekels of silver — originally owed by Tātê-bīt-ibni, now charged against the field holdings of various parties including Talīmu, Mudu, and others. The full amount is to be paid in the city of Gādibê. Several men are named as witnesses, including a temple administrator, and the scribe records the precise date: the 29th of Addaru (the last month of the Babylonian year), in the seventh year of Cambyses, king of Babylon and king of the lands. The rest of the tablet is intact.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 shekels (minus) a quarter, deficient, of silver — from Tātê-bīt-ibni, the field of Talīmu is at his charge. Arad-ia, the field of Mudu, in the month of Simanu — the silver, the silver: 3 shekels (minus) a quarter, deficient. In the city of Gādibê he shall pay. Witnesses: Tabnê-a, the field of Enlil-bāni; Mašê, the field of Šamaš-zēr-ibni; Šamaš-rēsūsu, the field of Balāṭu and the temple administrator (šangû). Rīmūt-Mašê, the field of Ḫamšâ-tātê-bīt-ibni. City of Gādibê. Month of Addaru, the 29th day. Year 7 of Cambyses, king of Babylon, [king] of the lands.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo8 uncertain terms ↓
- ta-at-e2-du3 — Babylonian personal name, conventionally read Tātê-bīt-ibni ('Tātê-bīt-ibni built it'); the spelling is phonetic and the identification is based on parallel name formations.
- a-szu2 sza2 ... ina ugu-hi — Literally 'the loan of X is upon him'; standard Babylonian formula for a debt bearing interest or registered against a named debtor. Rendered 'interest-bearing loan ... is upon (his account)' following Neo-Babylonian legal usage.
- GA-DI-BE — City name written syllabically; reading as Gādibê is conventional but its exact location is uncertain. It is associated with the Nippur region in some sources.
- i-nam-dim — Verbal form from nadānu 'to give/pay'; the form is inamdin, 3rd sg. present, meaning 'he shall pay'. Some editors read the final sign as -din rather than -dim.
- sanga — Sumerian logogram for šangû, 'temple administrator' or 'priest-administrator'; the precise rank can vary by context.
- 5(u)-ta-at-e2-du3 — Personal name element '50-tātê-bīt-ibni'; the numeral 50 (Ḫamšâ) prefixed to a longer name is unusual but attested in Neo-Babylonian onomastics.
- mu-DU / mu-du — The project glossary flags this as a logogram MU; in context it is most likely the personal name Mūdu, but mu-DU can also function as a logogram for 'delivery' or 'brought' in administrative texts. Here the personal-name reading fits the grammatical context.
- kam-bu-zi-ia2 — Phonetic spelling of Cambyses (Old Persian Kambūjiya); standard Babylonian rendering of the Persian king's name.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows two main tablet faces and several edge/side views arranged in a composite image. The obverse (large central tablet in the upper group) has multiple lines of dense cuneiform clearly impressed into a pale clay surface; the signs are generally legible though a diagonal crack runs through the lower half. The reverse (lower large tablet) likewise shows dense wedge impressions, with a crack and some surface abrasion in the centre-right area. The top edge piece, left edge piece, and right small piece correspond to the upper and side edges bearing additional sign traces. Visually I can confirm the presence of numeral-group signs consistent with '3 GIN' and the repeated structure suggesting a financial document; the witness list signs in the lower obverse and upper reverse lines are consistent with the personal names in the transliteration. The date formula signs on the reverse lower edge appear to include repeated diagonal wedges typical of year-number notation. I cannot independently verify every personal name from the photo at this resolution — especially the partially broken lines (mu-kin#, ri-mut-masz, _sze#_, _kam-bu-zi-ia2_) — but there is no visible discrepancy between what the photo shows and the transliteration as provided. The city name GA-DI-BE remains phonetically obscure; it is rendered here as Gādibê following the transliteration convention. Cambyses' titulary 'king of Babylon, king of the lands' is standard for his reign and confirms the Achaemenid date.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3761 in / 1406 out tokens
Transliteration
_3(disz) gin2 4(disz)-tu2 lal_-t,i _ku3-babbar_ sza ta-at-e2-du3 _a_-szu2 sza2 ta-li-mu ina _ugu_-hi ARAD-ia _a_-szu2 sza2 mu-du ina _iti sig4_ _ku3-babbar_-a' _ku3-babbar_-a' _3(disz) gin2 4(disz)-tu2 lal_-t,i ina _iri_ GA-DI-BE i-nam-dim mu-kin#-ni tab-ni-e-a _a_-szu2 sza2 en-lil2-ba-ni masz-e _a_-szu2 sza2 utu-numun-du3 utu-su _a_-szu2 sza2 ba-la-t,u u _sanga_ ri-mut-masz _a_-szu2 sza2 5(u)-ta-at-e2-du3# _iri GA-DI-BE iti sze#_ _u4 2(u) 9(disz)-kam_ _mu 7(disz)-kam kam-bu-zi-ia2 _lugal e-ki [lugal] kur-kur_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — CUSAS 15, 067. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Rare Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, USA (P270696) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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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.