Position in chronology
CUSAS 15, 184
About this tablet
A short loan or delivery contract in Akkadian from the Achaemenid period — probably the late sixth century BCE — recording that a quantity of barley (over six 'kor', a large grain measure) is owed by or allocated to named individuals, to be repaid at a slightly smaller rate in the barley-harvest month. The document is dated to the seventh year of the Persian king Cambyses II (around 522 BCE) and was drawn up by a named scribe at or near the settlement of Qatibat in Babylonia. Five witnesses are listed, including a shepherd and a leather-worker, giving a vivid snapshot of the mixed occupational community involved in routine grain credit under Persian rule. The tablet carries the modern museum accession number 184, visible in the photograph, and is now held at Cornell University.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Translation · reference
Medium confidence6 kor 1 PI of barley-grain, belonging to Tattannu, the share belonging to Talim, charged against [his] life/subsistence, the share belonging to Ina-gissu-šarri — in the month of barley-harvest at [the rate of] 5 kor 1 PI he shall pay. Witness: Tattannu, son of Enlil-musum, the shepherd; son of Mugub-Adad-mukīl; son of Adad-adgub, the leather-worker. Scribe: BA, son of Aqat-ibat. Month I (Nisannu), day 5, year 7 of Cambyses, king of Babylon, king of the lands.
Source: engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation)
Translation · AI engine
read from photo6 kor 1 PI of barley-grain, belonging to Tattannu, the share belonging to Talim, charged against [his] life/subsistence, the share belonging to Ina-gissu-šarri — in the month of barley-harvest at [the rate of] 5 kor 1 PI he shall pay. Witness: Tattannu, son of Enlil-musum, the shepherd; son of Mugub-Adad-mukīl; son of Adad-adgub, the leather-worker. Scribe: BA, son of Aqat-ibat. Month I (Nisannu), day 5, year 7 of Cambyses, king of Babylon, king of the lands.
7 uncertain terms ↓
- ba-la-tu — Literally 'life' or 'subsistence'; in context likely refers to a maintenance/ration allocation. Could also be read as part of a personal name or obligation clause — the exact legal nuance is debatable.
- ISZKUR-MU#-KI!-IL — The # and ! in the transliteration signal that the scribe's signs are partially damaged or corrected. The reading of this personal name (likely a theophoric name with Adad = Ištar/Adad element) is uncertain. Photo cannot confirm.
- a-szu2 sza2 — 'Son of' — standard Akkadian filiation formula (mār ša). Unambiguous in context but repeated many times; each occurrence identifies a witness by patronymic.
- kus-sa-ri — Occupational title, likely 'leather-worker' or 'tanner' (Akkadian: kussāru / gašširu). The exact Babylonian occupational classification is not entirely settled.
- mu-kin-ni — Standard Akkadian term for 'witness(es)' (mūkinnu). Here it introduces the witness list. Unambiguous in meaning but the single witness named after it (Tattannu) seems to head the list, with subsequent entries being 'sons of' other named individuals — possibly all referring to one composite witness or multiple witnesses.
- a qa-ti-bat — 'Son of Qatibat' — this is the scribe's filiation, where Qatibat is apparently a personal (or place) name. The site of modern Qaṭibat in Babylonia is associated with this archive, so this may reflect a family name tied to the locality.
- kam-bu-zi-ia — Akkadian rendering of Cambyses (Kambujiya in Old Persian). Cambyses II, son of Cyrus the Great, ruled Babylon 530–522 BCE; year 7 = ca. 522 BCE.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a pale, cream-coloured clay tablet presented in multiple views: obverse, reverse, edges, and the flat base bearing the ink-written accession number '184'. The wedge impressions are generally clear and well-preserved on the obverse (middle image) and reverse (bottom image), though a diagonal crack running across the lower half of the reverse has displaced some signs and renders a few readings uncertain. The top image (what appears to be the edge or a narrower face) shows two or three lines legible but difficult to read in detail at this resolution. Visually, the sign groupings on the obverse broadly align with the transliteration's line structure: I can make out repeated ŠÁ signs and what appear to be numeral complexes consistent with '6 GUR 1 PI' at the opening. The personal names (Tattannu, etc.) are harder to confirm from the photo alone due to the small scale, but the witness list section and the date formula signs at the end of the reverse are consistent with the provided transliteration. The reading 'ISZKUR-MU#-KI!-IL' (marked with # and ! in the transliteration indicating uncertain/corrected signs) cannot be independently verified from the photograph. The date formula 'year 7 of Cambyses, king of Babylon, king of the lands' is a well-attested Achaemenid-period formula; Cambyses' year 7 = ca. 522 BCE. The place name 'Qatibat' (mod. Qaṭibat) is consistent with the corpus of Babylonian administrative documents from that region. No significant divergences between photo and transliteration detected, but full sign-by-sign verification is not possible at this resolution.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3633 in / 1395 out tokens
Why it matters
Transliteration
_6(asz) gur 1(disz) PI sze-bar_ sza2 ta-at-tan-nu _a_-szu2 sza2 ta-lim ina muh-hi ba-la-tu _a_-szu2 sza2 ina-gissu-lugal ina _iti sze-bar_ a4 _5(asz) gur 1(disz) PI_ i-nam-din mu-kin-ni ta-at-tan-nu _a_-szu2 sza2 en-lil2-mu-sum ni-qu-du _a_-szu2 sza2 mu-gub iszkur-mu#-ki!-il _a_-szu2 sza2 iszkur-ad-gub kus-sa-ri _umbisag_ ba _a_-szu2 sza2 a qa-ti-bat _iti bar u4 5(disz)-kam mu 7(disz)-kam_ kam-bu-zi-ia _lugal e lugal kur-kur_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — CUSAS 15, 184. 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 (P270798) — 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.