Position in chronology
CUSAS 26, 145
About this tablet
This is a short grain account from the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, about 2300–2150 BCE, from an unknown site in southern Mesopotamia. It records large dry-measure amounts, counted in gur (a large capacity unit), coming from a temple or cult building called the Emaḫ ('Exalted House') and from several named people, including Lugal-itida, Ur-nigar and Ba-zaza. The commodity is never named, but amounts in these units were almost always barley. The tablet shows how an institution tracked grain passing between its storehouse and individual officials. Its last lines are broken, so we cannot tell exactly who received the grain in the end or for what purpose.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Seven gur came out of the Emaḫ and went to Lugal-itida and Ur-nigar. Further amounts were then logged. One gur and one barig came from Ur-nigar, one barig and two ban from a man whose name ends in Iškur, and four ban from someone whose name is damaged. Two gur came from a person whose name begins with AN, and four gur came from Ba-zaza. Fifteen gur are held by Ur-nigar, and nine gur are at the fortress of Ur-abba. The last two lines name the Emaḫ and someone called Nin-something, but they are too broken to say what happened.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse / Reverse (no side division is marked in the supplied transliteration; lines numbered consecutively here) 1. 7 gur: from the Emaḫ, 2. (to/with) Lugal-itida 3. and Ur-nigar. 4. 1 gur 1 barig: from Ur-nigar; 5. 1 barig 2 ban: from x-Iškur; 6. 4 ban: x [...]-x; 7. 2 gur: from AN-x; 8. 4 gur: from Ba-zaza; 9. 15 gur: with Ur-nigar; 10. 9 gur (literally 10 minus 1): (at) the fortress (of) Ur-abba. 11. The Emaḫ (ergative: 'the Emaḫ [did ...]') 12. Nin-x-[(x)]-x.
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
7(asz@c) e2#-mah#-ta# lugal-iti(|UD@sxTIL|)-da u3 ur-nigar 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) ki ur-nigar-ta 1(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) ki x-iszkur 4(ban2@c) x [...]-x 2(asz@c) ki AN# x-ta# 4(asz@c) ki ba-za-za-ta 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) ki ur-nigar 1(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) bad3 ur-ab-ba e2-mah-e nin-x-[(x)]-x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CUSAS 26, 145. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P427621) — 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.