Position in chronology
CUSAS 26, 107
About this tablet
This is a small record of goods, probably textiles, handed out to women. It comes from the Old Akkadian period, around 2300–2150 BCE, and its findspot is unknown; it is now in a private collection. Each entry names an item, with its number broken off, followed by a recipient. Mama-ummi and Geme-Enlila are both women's names. The tablet is dated to the last month of the year, the month of the barley harvest. It shows the everyday bookkeeping behind the textile economy of the first Mesopotamian empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The amounts are broken off, but the tablet lists goods and who got them. The first item, called nig-su-a, has lost its recipient. A number of ša-ga-du garments went to Mama-ummi. Something called su-bala went to Geme-Enlila. The next entry reads Sibitum, which may be another person or may be a term for the account as a whole. The record is dated to the twelfth month, the month of the barley harvest.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] nig2-su-a; [...] ša3-ga-du3 garment(s): [Ma]ma-ummi. [...] su-bala: [Geme-]Enlila. [Si]bitum. [Month] Še-KIN-ku5 (12th 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
[...] nig2-su-a [...] tug2 sza3-ga-du3 [ma]-ma#-um-mi# [...] su-bala# [geme2-]en#-lil2-la2 [si]-bi#-tum# [iti] sze#-sag11-ku5
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CUSAS 26, 107. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P427622) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.