Position in chronology
Adab 0845
About this tablet
This is a small administrative note from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), written around 2300–2150 BCE in the time of the Akkadian empire. It lists households ("the house of" named men) and individuals, then mentions long reeds and a boatman. The tablet is too damaged to say what kind of transaction it records. Reeds and boats were basic to the economy of the southern marshes and canals, and a note like this probably tracked reed deliveries, reed-cutting work, or a shipment by boat. The tablet is also a good sample of the personal names used in Adab in the Sargonic period.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a list of households and people: the house of Lugal-gešu, the house of Ur-eš-peš-ša, a man named Ur-Ištaran, and someone probably called Lu-dannam, though the name is unclear. After a gap, it mentions "long reeds." The next line is too worn to read. The last line is mostly lost too, but it ends with the word "boatman." The tablet never says what these people and households have to do with the reeds or the boat.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[House] of Lugal-gešu; house of Ur-eš-peš-[ša]; Ur-Ištaran, … […]; Lu-dannam(?), …; […] … long reeds; … … … … (illegible); … … …, the boatman.
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
[e2] lugal-gesz-szu# e2 ur-esz5-pesz-[sza4] ur-isztaran x [...] lu2-dan#?-nam#? x [...] x gi-gid2 x x x x x x x ma2-lah5#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0845. 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 (P217546) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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