Position in chronology
Adab 0842
About this tablet
A barley account from Adab (modern Bismaya) in southern Iraq, written under the Akkadian empire, roughly 2300–2150 BCE. A scribe lists grain paid out from an institutional store to a series of people identified by office or family: a gal5-gal constable, a woman named Meme described as 'the mother of En-anatum', a storehouse keeper, a field surveyor, and others, with some entries marked 'expended' and others ticked off as checked. The closing line totals everything at 27 gur 2 ban 4 sila — considerably more than the surviving entries, which shows how much of this small fragment has been lost. It is ordinary bookkeeping, but it puts named individuals and their jobs on record in a provincial city of the world's first empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley disbursements: 2 gur less 3 ban 6 sila to the constable — paid out. 2 gur to Meme, mother of En-anatum — verified. 1 barig to the man of the e-dam — verified. 1 gur of barley, measured by the standard gur, to A-tag, the storehouse keeper. 1 gur to the surveyor — verified. 1 gur to Lugal-e — verified. Then a line naming the scribe(?), now broken. 3 gur to Maš-šu[...] — paid out. 1 barig 2 ban for the regular offerings [...], charged to the man handling the barley of the bala obligation. 3 ban to Dingir-igi-du-mu — paid out. Grand total: 27 gur 2 ban 4 sila of barley, reckoned by the great gur.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 gur minus 3 ban 6 sila (of barley) — (for) the gal5-gal official: expended. 2. 2 gur — Meme, the mother of En-anatum: PAP (checked). 3. 1 barig — the man of the e-dam: PAP (checked). 4. 1 gur of barley by the correct (standard) gur — A-tag, 5. the man of the storehouse. 6. 1 gur — the man of the surveying-rope (surveyor): PAP (checked). 7. 1 gur — Lugal-e: PAP (checked). 8. the scribe(?) [...] 9. 3 gur — Maš-šu[...]: expended. 10. 1 barig 2 ban — regular offerings (sa2-du11) [...] 11. the man of the barley of the bala-[duty ...] 12. 3 ban — Dingir-igi-du-mu: expended. 13. Total: 27 gur 2 ban 4 sila of barley, by the great gur.
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
2(asz@c) la2 3(ban2@c) 6(disz) sila3 gal5-gal zi-ga 2(asz@c) me-me ama en-an-na-tum2# PAP 1(barig@c) lu2 e2-dam PAP 1(asz@c) sze gur si-sa2 a-tag lu2 ganun-na 1(asz@c) lu2 esz2-gid2 PAP 1(asz@c) lugal-e2 PAP dub-[...] 3(asz@c) masz-szu# [...] zi-ga 1(barig) 2(ban2) sa2-du11# [...] lu2 sze bala-[...] 3(ban2@c) dingir-igi-du-mu zi-ga szunigin 2(u@c) 7(asz@c) 2(ban2@c) 4(disz) sila3 sze gur mah#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0842. 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 (P217545) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.