Position in chronology
Adab 1104
About this tablet
An administrative tally from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written during the Akkadian (Sargonic) period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. It counts enormous quantities of reeds — thousands of bundles — connected with the imperial capital Agade and totalled at the end for delivery to, or use by, the boatmen. Reeds were essential raw material for boat-building, caulking, matting and towing, so this is a glimpse of the river-transport economy that tied a provincial city to Sargon's capital.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a stock record: 4,800 bundles of barbar-reeds are logged first, with an entry mentioning Agade, the capital, and another naming someone whose name begins 'Nin-'. Several lines in the middle are too damaged to read; one surviving scrap may mention flax, and another preserves the end of a personal name. The account closes with the grand total — 8,683 bundles of barbar-reeds — earmarked for the boatmen. In short: a warehouse clerk counted out nearly nine thousand reed bundles for the river crews.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. 4,800 (6 × 600 + 2 × 600) barbar-reeds, 2. [...] persons(?)/head(?) ... of Agade, 3. [...] ... Nin-[...], 4. [...] ... ... [...], 5. [...] 6. [...] (Reverse) 7. [...] ... flax(?) [...], 8. [...]-si-eš-gur(?) (a personal name?), 9. [Total:] 8,683 (7 × 600 + 7 × 600 + 4 × 60 + 40 + 3) barbar-reeds, 10. (for/of) the boatmen.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
6(gesz'u@v)# 2(gesz'u) gi# bar-bar [...] sag# a-ga-de3 [...] nu#? nin-[...] [...] x x [...] [...] [...] [...] x gu#? [...] [...]-si-esz18-gur? [szunigin] 7(gesz'u@v)#? 7(gesz'u) 4(gesz2)#? 4(u) 3(disz@t) gi bar-bar lu2# ma2-lah5#-e-ne#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Adab 1104. 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 (P217632) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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