BIN 08, 249

About this tablet

This is a barley ration list from the Akkadian (Sargonic) period, about 2300–2150 BCE. It probably comes from the private estate archive of Mesag, a well-known official in the Umma region, whose tablets are now at Yale. Nine workers receive barley: a felt-maker, two leatherworkers, a boatman, a donkey herder, a cupbearer, a smith and one man with no title. Together they give a small snapshot of the skilled staff who kept a large household running.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Barley payroll, measured with the standard gur. Anita the felt-maker gets 2 gur. The two leatherworkers, Ilum-dan and Ilum-sukkal, get 2 gur and 1 gur. Ur-li the boatman gets 2 gur. Šara-isa, who looks after the draught donkeys, Ur-Iškur the cupbearer and Ili-balik each get 2 barig. Dingir-igi-du the smith gets 1 gur. The total paid out in barley rations is 9 gur 2 barig. Mesag is responsible for the account.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Obverse / Reverse (the sides are not marked in the transliteration; lines numbered here in sequence) 1. 2 gur of barley, (by the) standard gur (sag-si-sa2): 2. Anita, the felt-maker. 3. 2 gur: Ilum-dan (DINGIR-kal-ga), 4. 1 gur: Ilum-sukkal (DINGIR-sukkal), 5. (these are) leatherworkers. 6. 2 gur: Ur-li, the boatman. 7. 2 barig: Šara-isa, herder of the draught donkeys. 8. 2 barig: Ur-Iškur, the cupbearer. 9. 2 barig: Ili-balik. 10. 1 gur: DINGIR-igi-du, the smith. 11. Total: 9 gur 2 barig of barley rations, (by the) standard gur. 12. Responsibility of Mesag.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. 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

2(asz@c)# _sze gur sag-si-sa2_
a2-ni-ta _tug2-du8#*_
2(asz@c) dingir-kal-ga
1(asz@c) dingir-sukkal
_aszgab-me_
2(asz@c) ur-li _ma2-lah5_
2(barig@c) szara2-i3-sa6!(UN) _sipa ansze-erin2_
2(barig@c) ur-iszkur _sagi_
2(barig@c) i3-li2-ba-lik
1(asz@c) dingir-igi-du _simug_
szunigin 9(asz@c) 2(barig@c) _sze-ba gur sag-si-sa2_
szu me-sag2

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — BIN 08, 249. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Nies Babylonian Collection, Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (P212793) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet

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.

~2050 BCE

Drehem Cattle-Distribution Tablet

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.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1