Position in chronology
HSS 10, 018
About this tablet
A field-survey record from Gasur (later Nuzi, in northern Iraq) from the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A surveyor measured the four sides of an irregular plot — its north and east dimensions and their opposites — and computed its area at 2 bur3, roughly 13 hectares. The final line assigns the plot to a man named Ur-sag. Documents like this show royal or institutional administrators keeping precise track of who held which farmland, centuries before Nuzi became famous for its later Hurrian archives.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A land survey: the plot measures 45 rods along the north side and 40 along the side opposite; 110 rods along the east side and 80 opposite. A damaged line notes a portion of field left over or set apart from the reckoning. The total area comes to 2 bur3 — about 13 hectares of farmland. The whole parcel is booked as the field-property of Ur-sag.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 45 (ninda on the) north (side), 40 (on the opposite side); 2. 110 (ninda on the) east (side), 80 (on the opposite side); 3. [...] field set aside (left over); 4. [its area:] 2 bur3 of field; 5. property of the field of Ur-sag.
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
4(u@c) 5(asz@c) mer 4(u@c) 1(gesz2@c) 5(u@c) kur 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) [...] GAN2 bar-ra-gal2 [a-sza3-bi] 2(bur3@c) GAN2 nig2 GAN2 ur-sag
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 018. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P213284) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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