Position in chronology
Adab 0964
About this tablet
This is a short grain receipt from Adab (modern Bismaya) in southern Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300–2200 BCE. Two men, Meme and Igini, received barley, and one of them also received emmer and wheat. The grain was issued to them as seed for sowing, not as food rations. The scribe totals the grain at the end, which gives a small, practical view of how a Sargonic estate handed out seed to its farmers before planting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Meme was issued 3 ban of nu-u2-nunuz barley, plus 2 ban of emmer and wheat. Igini was issued another 3 ban of the same barley. Together that makes 1 barig of barley and 2 ban of emmer and wheat. Both men received the grain as seed for sowing. The line naming the month is damaged, and only traces of it survive.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 ban of nu-u2-nunuz barley: Meme. 2 ban of emmer (and) wheat, 3 ban of nu-u2-nunuz barley: Igini. Total: 1 barig of nu-u2-nunuz barley; total: 2 ban of emmer (and) wheat. They received it as seed. Month: [...] ...
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
3(ban2@c) sze nu-u2-nunuz me-me 2(ban2@c) ziz2 gig 3(ban2@c) sze nu-u2-nunuz igi-ni szunigin 1(barig@c) sze nu-u2-nunuz szunigin 2(ban2@c) ziz2 gig numun-sze3 szu ba-ti-esz2 iti [...] x x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0964. 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 (P217592) — 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.