Position in chronology
CST 019
About this tablet
This is a short Old Akkadian ledger from Mesopotamia, written around 2300–2150 BCE. Its findspot is unknown, and it is now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It lists four men who each received 2 barig of sesame oil, the main cooking and lamp oil of the period. The four are grouped together as people 'of' Bad-da-elam, which could be a person, an official or a place. The last two lines are a hard-to-read note about the entry's accounting status. They seem to say that the oil should be entered on a particular tablet or account and should not be treated as a hubūtu, a term for a kind of loan.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Sesame oil, 2 barig each, went to Si-AN-HA, Pap-gi-su4, Si-nam-ki-ri-ir and Adda-SIG-ba, who all belong to Bad-da-elam's group. The closing note says this goes on the 'mehi' tablet and is not to be counted as a hubūtu, which seems to mean a loan.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 barig of sesame oil: Si-AN-HA; 2 barig: Pap-gi-su4; 2 barig: Si-nam-ki-ri-ir; 2 barig: Adda-SIG-ba; (these are those) of Bad-da-elam. For the tablet of mehi (?), not hubūtu.
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(barig)# _gesz i3_ si-AN-HA 2(barig) pap-gi-su4 2(barig) si-nam-ki-ri-ir 2(barig) ad-da-SIG-ba szu#?-ut#? bad3-da-elam a-na _dub_ me-hi la hu-bu-tu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CST 019. 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 (P212943) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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