Position in chronology
Anonymous 271222
About this tablet
A small administrative memo from the Old Akkadian period (about 2300 BCE), probably from the town of Umma in southern Iraq. It records the handing over of a modest batch of goods — a couple of measures of dates and a few wooden implements — to two named individuals, one delivery apparently connected with drink or the tending of young plants. It is the everyday paperwork of estate management under the Akkadian empire, the kind of receipt written by the thousand and rarely meant to be kept for long.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued: two ban (roughly 20 liters) of dates, plus three wooden pegs that had been left over and two more of the same, to Dingir-lugal-iri-bar. A further allotment, for drinking — or perhaps for watering and raising young trees — was given to Lugal-imšul-nu-eš. That's the whole note: quantities out, recipients named, transfer confirmed with the closing word 'it was given.' The tablet's reverse was left blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. 2 ban of dates, 2. 3 wooden nig-du (pegs?), left behind, ..., 3. 2 wooden nig-du(?), ..., 4. (for) Dingir-lugal-iri-bar; 5. (for) drinking (and) rearing (or: for watering the saplings), 6. (to) Lugal-imšul-nu-eš 7. it was given (an-na-šum).
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
2(ban2@c) zu2-lum 3(asz@c) gesz nig2-du tak4 x 2(asz@c) gesz nig2?-DU x dingir-lugal-iri-bar nag bulug3-bulug3 lugal-im-szul-nu-esz3 an-na-szum2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Anonymous 271222. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P271222) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.