Position in chronology
Anonymous 271230
About this tablet
An administrative memo from the workshop economy of Old Akkadian Umma, in southern Iraq around 2300 BCE. It records small quantities of oil and alkali issued for the treatment of animal hides — ox hides and what appear to be skins of steppe animals — with a portion also going to the barber's establishment. Oil and alkali were the everyday chemistry of ancient leather-dressing, and tablets like this show how closely even half a liter of fat was accounted for.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A workshop ledger of oil for leather-working: half a sila of oil went to treat one ox hide that was on hand — job done. Two and a half sila went to the barber's house. Eighteen sila of oil (written '20 less 2') covered six speckled steppe-animal hides, also processed. Finally one more sila, with alkali, finished another ox hide. In short: an accountant's note of exactly how much oil the tannery used, hide by hide.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1/2 sila of oil, 2. 1 ox hide on hand (gal₂), 3. having been processed (ab-ak); 4. 2 1/2 sila (for) the house of the barber (e₂ šu-i); 5. 20 minus 2 (= 18) sila of oil, 6. 6 speckled(?) steppe(-hides?) (edin? ba-ru-um), 7. having been processed; 8. 1 sila (of oil): ox hide, ... alkali(?), 9. having been processed.
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
1/2(disz) sila3 i3 1(asz@c) kusz gu4 gal2 ab-ak 2(asz@c) 1/2(disz) sila3 e2 szu-i 2(u@c) la2 2(disz) sila3 i3 6(asz@c) edin#? ba-ru-um ab#-ak 1(disz) sila3 kusz gu4 x naga? ab-ak
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Anonymous 271230. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P271230) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.