Position in chronology
Adab 1095
About this tablet
A small, bun-shaped clay note from Adab in southern Iraq, written under the kings of Akkad (roughly 2300–2150 BCE). It is a work-log for one field during the harvest month: five days spent breaking up the ground, ten days reaping, fifteen days in total, after which the field's account is declared settled. Tablets like this are how estate managers proved that labour owed on a given plot had actually been performed — the ancient equivalent of a signed-off timesheet, and one of our few direct glimpses of how the agricultural calendar was policed day by day.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
In the harvest month: five days went to breaking up the ground on the plot, then ten more days to cutting the barley. Fifteen days in all, the two entries added together — with that, the field's work quota is certified as complete.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineMonth: "Harvest" (month of the reaping). 5 days having elapsed, work was done at the clod-crushing (of the plot); 10 days having elapsed, the barley was reaped; 15 days — that being the two of them added together — the field is confirmed.
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
iti gurx(|SZE&SZE.KIN|)-a u4# 5(disz) al-zal sar# gaz-sze3 al-ak u4 1(u) al-zal sze al-gurx(|SZE&SZE.KIN|)-gurx(|SZE&SZE.KIN|) u4 1(u) 5(disz) tab-kam-ma-bi GAN2 gi-na-am3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 1095. 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 (P217629) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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