Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 237
About this tablet
A small barley account from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written during the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2150 BCE). The scribe records amounts of grain — carefully distinguishing 'new' barley of the recent harvest from 'old' barley carried over in storage — booked under two named individuals. It is a scrap of everyday accounting, the kind of record that kept a city's grain economy running more than four thousand years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An accounting note listing barley in two batches, each closed by a person's name. The first batch: 2 gur 3 barig of new barley, 1 gur of old barley, 1 gur 1 barig of new barley, and 3 barig of old barley — all booked to Guri-ki. The second batch: 1 gur 1 barig of new barley plus a further amount (the number is broken) and 2 barig of new barley — booked to Nin-baragesi. In modern terms, the ledger tracks roughly how much fresh-harvest grain versus stored grain each person was responsible for; one figure is lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 gur 3 barig of barley, gur (measure), new (barley); 2. 1 (gur) of old barley; 3. 1 (gur) 1 barig of new barley; 4. 3 barig of old barley: 5. (for/of) Guri-ki(?). 6. 1 (gur) 1 barig, new, barley(?); 7. [n (gur)] 2 barig of new barley: 8. (for/of) Nin-baragesi.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(asz@c) 3(barig@c) sze gur gibil 1(asz@c) sze sumun 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze gibil 3(barig@c) sze sumun gu-ri2-ki? 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) gibil sze!? [n] 2(barig@c) sze gibil nin-bara2-ge-si
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC) ?) — CUSAS 35, 237. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P254052) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.