Position in chronology
AAICAB 1/3, pl. 245, Bod S 295
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the ancient city of Umma in southern Iraq, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2100 BCE). It records an allocation or delivery of grain products — beer-bread, groats, malt, and various grades of flour — linked to a person named Mama-hursag. The commodities are labeled 'Akkadian,' suggesting either a specific variety or a connection to the imperial capital, Akkad. The tablet closes with a date in the third year and seventh month of an unnamed king's reign, giving us a precise but anonymized timestamp in the Akkadian imperial system.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a record of grain supplies issued (or received) under the name Mama-hursag: 2 barig each of Akkadian-style beer-bread, groats, malt, and flour, plus 2 ban of fine flour. The grand total comes to 1 gur, 3 barig, and 2 ban of flour (Akkadian grade), with an additional 2 ban of fine flour. The transaction was recorded in the seventh month of the third year — whose reign, the document does not say, though any local official reading it would have known at once.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 barig of Akkadian bappir (beer-bread) 2 barig of groats 2 barig of malt 2 barig of flour 2 ban of fine flour (for/by) Mama-hursag Total: 1 gur 3 barig 2 ban of flour — Akkadian 2 ban of fine flour Year 3, month 7
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 photo5 uncertain terms ↓
- bappir a-ga-de3 — 'Akkadian bappir' — bappir is standardly translated 'beer-bread' (a fermentation ingredient); the qualifier a-ga-de3 ('of Akkad/Akkadian') likely denotes a specific quality or recipe type. The precise distinction from other bappir types is not fully understood.
- nig2-ar3-ra — Conventionally translated 'groats' (coarsely ground grain). Some scholars render it 'flour of a specific grade'; context supports the groats reading here.
- zi3-sig15@v — 'Fine flour' or 'sifted flour'; the sign value sig15 with the @v modifier indicates a specific high-quality milled product. The exact grade and its cultic or ration use remain debated.
- ITIx(|UDxsxTIL|) — A compound month sign, one of the Akkadian-period month names at Umma. The precise month name it encodes is not universally agreed; cannot verify the exact sign cluster from the photograph at this resolution.
- 3(disz@t) mu 7(disz@g) — '3rd year, 7th month' — the regnal year is not identified with a specific king in this tablet; it would have been understood by contemporary readers from context. Cannot determine whose reign from this text alone.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows two faces of a small, well-preserved lenticular/bun-shaped tablet with clearly ruled horizontal lines. The wedge impressions are legible across most of the surface, though some signs in the lower right corner of the obverse are slightly eroded. The museum label '8295' (read as 'S 295' in the catalog) is visible on the left edge piece. On the obverse I can make out repeated sign groups consistent with capacity measures (the barig and ban notation) followed by commodity signs; the groupings align well with the transliteration's four 2-barig entries plus a 2-ban entry. The personal name Mama-ḫursag is visible as a two-line group. The reverse shows the summary line and date formula; the large numeral groups and the ITI (month) sign are discernible, consistent with the transliteration. The month sign ITIx(|UDxSTIL|) is a compound sign for a specific month name that cannot be fully resolved from the photo at this resolution. The Akkadian-period Umma provenance is consistent with the sign forms and the mention of 'Akkadian-type' bappir, which is a known commodity distinction in this corpus.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 2726 in / 967 out tokens
Transliteration
2(barig@c) bappir a-ga-de3 2(barig@c) nig2-ar3-ra 2(barig@c) munu4 2(barig@c) zi3 2(ban2@c) zi3-sig15@v ma-ma-hur-sag szunigin 1(asz@c) 3(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) zi3 gur a-ga-de3 2(ban2@c) zi3-sig15@v 3(disz@t) mu 7(disz@g) ITIx(|UDxsxTIL|)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — AAICAB 1/3, pl. 245, Bod S 295. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P249200) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.