Position in chronology
CST 014
About this tablet
This is an Old Akkadian (Sargonic-period, around 2300–2150 BCE) accounting tablet for beer. It records the fixed beer allotment for a single day, measured in jars of three sizes, then multiplies it up to a 30-day month and states how much barley was needed to brew it. Where it came from is unknown. It is a small but tidy example of how Akkadian-era bookkeepers planned supplies: they started from the daily need, projected it forward, and costed it in grain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Each day's regular beer supply is three large jars of 70 litres each, one jar of 50 litres and one jar of 30 litres. For a month that comes to 90 of the large jars, 30 of the 50-litre jars and 30 of the 30-litre jars. Brewing this takes 36 gur and 1 barig of barley, measured by the large 'great' gur standard. The last line gives the period covered: a number of years, now lost, and one month.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse/Reverse (no section division in the source) 1. 3 (jars of) beer, (each) jar of 1 barig 1 ban; 2. 1 (jar of) beer, jar of 5 ban; 3. 1 (jar of) beer, jar of 3 ban: 4. regular allotment for 1 day. 5. Total: 90 (jars of) beer, (each) jar of 1 barig 1 ban; 6. 30 (jars of) beer, (each) jar of 5 ban; 7. 30 (jars of) beer, (each) jar of 3 ban: 8. regular allotment for 1 month. 9. 36 gur 1 barig of barley (for) beer, (in) gur of the 'great head' (standard). 10. [n year(s)], 1 month.
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
3(disz)# kasz 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) dug 1(asz@c) kasz 5(ban2@c) dug 1(asz@c) kasz 3(ban2@c) dug sa2-du11 1(disz@t) u4 szunigin 1(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) kasz 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) dug 3(u@c) kasz 5(ban2@c) dug 3(u@c) kasz 3(ban2@c) dug sa2-du11 1(disz@t) iti 3(u@c) 6(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze kasz gur sag-gal2 [n mu] 1(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CST 014. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (P212939) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (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.