Position in chronology
HSS 10, 035
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Gasur — the town in northern Iraq later famous as Nuzi — written in the age of the Akkadian empire, around 2300 BCE. A scribe is logging small amounts of barley issued to pairs and individuals of named men, each amount tied to a fixed plot measure of field, most likely seed grain or a cultivation allowance. The entries also name where the fields lay, including a place called 'King's Fortress.' It is a rare window into how village-level farming was administered under the world's first empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley ledger. Šu-Eštar and Zazum received four and a half (or slightly more) liters of barley for one sar of field; Zukiki and Išmā-ilum likewise got four and a half liters for one sar. A damaged entry records a fraction of barley for a man whose name ends in '-ilīsu.' Puzur-ekal received his barley for one sar of field at the locality of Arik-dīn, and Erenti received four liters for one sar at Dūr-šarrim, 'the King's Fortress.' The middle entries are partly broken away, but the pattern is the same throughout: a fixed dole of barley per standard plot of land, per named farmer.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 [+ ...] ½ sila of barley, (allotted) for the field, (at the rate of) 1 [sar] — 2. Šu-Eštar and Zazum; 3. 4½ sila of barley, for the field, (at) 1 sar — 4. Zukiki and Išmā-ilum; 5. [...] sila (and) ⅓ of barley, for [...] 6. [...]-ilīsu [...] 7. [... sila of barley, for] the field, (at) 1 sar — 8. Puzur-ekal [...], 9. in Arik-dīn; 10. 4 sila of barley, for the field, (at) 1 sar — 11. Erenti, 12. in Dūr-šarrim ("King's Fortress").
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(asz@c) [...] 1/2(asz@c)# _sila3 sze_ szu _GAN2_ 1(asz@c) [_sar_] szu-esz18-dar u3 za-zum 4(asz@c) 1/2(asz@c) _sila3 sze_ szu _GAN2_ 1(asz@c) _sar_ zu-ki-ki u3 isz-ma2-dingir [...] _sila3_ 1/3(asz@c) _sze_ szu# [...] [...-i3]-li2#-su [...] [... _sze_ szu] _GAN2_ 1(asz@c) _sar#_ puzur4#-e2-gal [...] in# a-ri2-ik-di3#-[in] 4(asz@c) _sila3 sze_ szu _GAN2_ 1(asz@c) _sar_ er3-e-en-ti in bad3-lugal[]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 035. 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 (P213301) — 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.