Position in chronology
Adab 0717
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written under the Akkadian empire (around 2300 BCE), when Sargon's dynasty had imposed its own standardized 'Agade' grain measure across Sumer. The scribe tallies large quantities of barley — one running total comes to 91 gur, roughly 27,000 liters — with entries tied to the cities of Umma and Adab, and names a man, Bizaza, who received the grain. It is a small window into how the world's first empire centralized and audited its grain economy, right down to the imperial measuring standard stamped into every line.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley ledger. The opening entries are damaged, but they record shipments measured in the imperial Agade standard: about 30 gur in one line, then smaller amounts down to individual sila. A subtotal follows: 91 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban of barley by the Agade measure, connected with Umma. More barley entries follow for Adab, with a second subtotal of around 21 gur, though the figures here are partly broken. On the back, the closing note says that a man named Bizaza received the grain, in Adab. The final line is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] 30(?) gur of barley in the Agade (measure), ... gur, 2 [...], 1 barig, 1 ban, 6 sila [...], [...] in [Aga]de, ... [...] ... [...] Total: 91 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban of barley in the Agade (measure), received(?) — Umma. [...] gur of barley in the Agade (measure), [...] Adab. [Total: ...] 21(?) gur, 2 barig(?), [n ... of barley in the Agade measure]. (Break) (reverse) Bizza[za] rec[eived]; in Adab. ... [...]
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] 3(u@c)#? sze gur a#-[ga-de3] x gur 2(asz@c) [...] 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) 6(disz) sila3 [...] [...] in [a-ga]-de3#[] x x [...] x a [...] szunigin# 1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) sze gur a-ga-de3 szu#? umma [...] sze gur a-ga-de3 [...] adab# [szunigin ...] 2(u@c)#? 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c)#? [n sze gur a-ga-de3] [...] bi2-za-[za] im-[hur] in adab#[] i-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0717. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P217505) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.