Position in chronology
Adab 0846
About this tablet
A barley account from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written in the time of the Akkadian empire, around 2300–2150 BCE. Most of the grain went to the regular offerings for the gods. Smaller amounts went to a cook, to feed ducks, to a scribe and to other named people. It ends with a total marked as issued and the name En-annatum, probably the official in charge. It is a small, everyday record of how a temple or palace storehouse fed both gods and staff.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued from the stores: 10 gur (a large measure) of barley, by the standard measure, for the gods' regular offerings, delivered to the shrine. Sipa-anne the cook gets 2 gur of barley. Another 1 barig, 3 ban and 5 sila go to the ducks, the scribe Ur-zigumma and Lugal-magure. Zuzu gets 2 ban of barley flour. The reverse gives the total barley and flour issued, a little over 12 gur by the standard measure, notes that it has all gone out, and names En-annatum as the official responsible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse [10] gur of barley, standard (si-sa2) measure: [regular offerings] of the gods, brought to the shrine (esz3-tum2). 2 gur of barley: Sipa-anne, the cook. 1 barig 3 ban 5 sila: the ducks (uz-tur); Ur-zigumma, the scribe; Lugal-magure. 2 ban of dabin flour: Zuzu. Reverse Total: 10 gur 2 (gur) 3 barig 4 ban of barley, 3 ban 5 sila, standard measure, gone out (expended). En-annatum.
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[1(u)] sze gur si-sa2 [sa2-du11] dingir#-e-ne esz3-tum2 2(asz) sze gur sipa-an-ne2 muhaldim 1(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) 5(disz) sila3 uz-tur ur-zigum-ma dub-sar lugal-ma2-gur8-e 2(ban2@c) dabin zu-zu szunigin 1(u) 2(asz@c) 3(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) sze gur 3(ban2@c) 5(disz) sila3 si-sa2 e3 en-an-na-tum2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0846. 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 (P217547) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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