Position in chronology
HMA 9-01900
About this tablet
An administrative receipt from the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2350–2200 BCE), recording the disbursement of four grain-fattened cattle — three oxen and a calf. Each animal is booked out from a named supplier to a named recipient, among them a household administrator, a travelling merchant, and the 'uzga', an institution connected with sanctuaries and animal fattening. It is a small window into how a centralized bureaucracy tracked valuable livestock, animal by animal, nearly 4,300 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ledger of outgoing livestock: one grain-fattened ox issued to Dada, the estate manager, drawn from Abba-iri's account; one grain-fattened ox to Lugal-gigir, the travelling merchant, from Utu-pirig's account; one grain-fattened ox to Durgum, destined for the uzga establishment, from E-dumuzi's account; and one grain-fattened calf to Balaga. All items booked out as expenditures.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 grain-fed ox — 2. Dada, the household administrator (šabra), 3. from Abba-iri; 4. 1 grain-fed ox — 5. Lugal-gigir, the travelling merchant, 6. from Utu-pirig; 7. 1 grain-fed ox — 8. Durgum, 9. (for) the uzga (sanctuary/fattening establishment), 10. from E-dumuzi; 11. 1 grain-fed gir-calf — 12. Balaga. 13. Expended (booked out).
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
1(asz@c) gu4 niga da-da szabra ki ab-ba-iri-ta 1(asz@c) gu4 niga lugal-gigir2 ga-esz8 ki utu-pirig-ta 1(asz@c) gu4 niga du-ur-gum uz-ga ki e2-dumu-zi-ta 1(asz@c) amar gir niga bala-ga zi-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HMA 9-01900. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA (P247993) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.