Position in chronology
Adab 0776
About this tablet
An account of barley from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It records grain totals tied to specific fields: one belonging to the official land-surveyor — literally the 'rope-stretcher' who measured plots with a cord — and another held on lease by a minister (sukkal). Small records like this are the raw bookkeeping behind the Akkadian state's control of farmland and harvests, showing how yields were tracked field by field under named officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley ledger. On the books as available stock: 17 gur and 2 barig of barley (roughly 5,300 liters) credited to Ur-sag, from the field assigned to the land-surveyor. Then 10 gur, 1 barig and 3 ban of barley (about 3,100 liters) from the field the minister holds on lease. A final entry notes 20 gur of barley, with no further detail. The back of the tablet was left blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 17 gur 2 barig of barley, available capital (sag-gal₂), (of) Ur-sag, field of the surveyor (lu₂-eš₂-gid₂, 'rope-stretcher'); 10 gur 1 barig 3 ban of barley, field of the sukkal (minister), under lease (apin-la₂); 20 [gur] of barley. (reverse uninscribed)
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
1(u) 7(asz) 2(barig) sze# [gur] sag-gal2 ur-sag a-sza3 lu2 esz2-gid2 1(u) 1(barig) 3(ban2) sze gur a-sza3 sukkal apin-la2 2(u) sze [gur]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0776. 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 (P217528) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
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.