Position in chronology
Adab 0989
About this tablet
A small clay ledger from Adab, in southern Iraq, written under the Akkadian empire (roughly the 23rd century BCE). It lists barley allotments — mostly four ban, about forty liters each — issued to a dozen named women, among them Ama-sukkal, Nin-ḫili and Geme-gigir, and closes with a grand total. Rations like these were the wages of women working in the textile and milling households attached to the temple or palace, and the list is one of the few places where such women appear in the record by name at all.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley issued: three ban to [the first woman, whose entry is damaged]; Nin-urdu; four ban to Ama-sukkal; four to Nin-ḫili; four to Nin-ušur-mu; amounts now lost for Ku-burina and Igi-du-du; three ban to a second Nin-ḫili; four to Nam-ušur; four to Nin-ama-mu; four to Nin-šerzi; three to Geme-gigir. The account ends with a total of 5 gur 2 barig, though the figure is chipped and the rest of the summary line is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 ban of [barley — ...] Nin-urdu 4 ban: Ama-sukkal 4 ban: Nin-ḫili 4 ban: Nin-ušur-mu [n]: Ku-burina [n]: Igi-du-du 3 ban: Nin-ḫili 4 ban: Nam-ušur 4 ban: Nin-ama-mu 4 ban: Nin-šerzi 3 ban: Geme-gigir [Total:] 5 gur 2 barig [...]
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)# [...] nin-ur-du 4(ban2) ama-sukkal 4(ban2) nin-hi-li 4(ban2) nin-uszur4-mu [n] ku-bu-ri2-na# [n] igi-du8-du8 3(ban2) nin-hi-li 4(ban2) nam-uszur4 4(ban2) nin-ama-mu 4(ban2) nin-szer7-zi 3(ban2) geme2-gigir2 [szunigin] 5(asz) 2(barig)#? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 0989. 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 (P217607) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.