Position in chronology
CUSAS 19, 201
About this tablet
This is a short receipt of dates from Isin in southern Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian period (about 2300–2150 BCE). It lists small amounts of dates handed out to a few named people. Most of them are described as men of a household or estate called E-miri-KI-a. One share goes to a woman identified only as the wife of Nita-zi. The note ends by booking the whole issue as an expense of an official named Ili-beli. It is an everyday record of how a local administrator kept track of food he gave out.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Dates handed out: Ur-PA, son of A-ni-ta, gets 2 barig. Ur-lu also gets 2 barig, Me-zi gets 1 barig and 3 ban, Ur-barra gets 1 barig, and the shepherd gets 1 ban. All of these are men of the E-miri-KI-a household. The wife of Nita-zi receives 4 ban. The whole amount is booked as an expense of Ili-beli.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse / Reverse (the edition gives no side markers) 1. 2 barig of dates (gur-measure): 2. Ur-PA, 3. son of A-ni-ta; 4. 2 barig: Ur-lu; 5. 1 barig 3 ban: Me-zi; 6. 1 barig: Ur-barra; 7. 1 ban: the shepherd; 8. (these are the) men of E-miri-KI-a. 9. 4 ban: the wife of Nita-zi. 10. Expenditure 11. (of) Ili-beli.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(barig) zu2-lum gur ur-PA dumu a2-ni-ta 2(barig) ur-lu2 1(barig) 3(ban2) me-zi 1(barig) ur-bar-ra 1(ban2) sipa lu2 e2-mi-ri2-KI-a 4(ban2) dam nita-zi nig2 zi-ga i3-li2-be-li2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CUSAS 19, 201. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P273794) — 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.