Position in chronology
BuB 2, 03
About this tablet
This is a short receipt or disbursement note from Umma in southern Iraq, from the time of the Akkad Empire (about 2300–2200 BCE). It lists beer and bread given to two people, probably travellers or messengers passing through, who received food from the local administration. The line near the end names an official, probably the one who authorised or handled the issue, and the last line gives a date. Tablets like this show how the state fed people on official business, one jar of beer and a few loaves at a time.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Several jars of beer (the number is lost), about thirty loaves of bread and three loaves of 'head' bread went to a man named PA-x-a-ḫu. One jar of beer, ten loaves of bread and three loaves of 'head' bread went to I₃-…, the man from somewhere whose name is too damaged to read. The next line names Lugal-…-maḫ, but part of his name is broken. The note is dated to the 8th day, probably in year 5.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (and continuation; no side markers are given in the source) 1. [n] gur₈(-vessels) of beer, 2. 30(?) loaves of bread, 3 sag-ninda (loaves); 3. PA-x-a-ḫu. 4. 1 gur₈(-vessel) of beer, 5. 10 loaves of bread, 3 sag-ninda (loaves); 6. I₃-x-x-x, 7. man of x-x. 8. Lugal-[x]-maḫ(?) [(....)] 9. Year 5(?), day 8.
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
[n] kasz# gur8 3(u@c)#? ninda# 3(asz@c) sag <ninda> PA-x-a-hu 1(asz@c)# kasz gur8 1(u@c) ninda 3(asz@c) sag ninda# i3-x-x-x lu2# x-x lugal#-[x]-mah#? [(x x)] 5(disz@t)#? mu# u4 8(disz@t)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — BuB 2, 03. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (P214940) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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