Position in chronology
HSS 10, 111
About this tablet
An accounting tablet in Old Akkadian from Gasur — the Sargonic-period town that millennia later became Nuzi, in northern Iraq — written around 2300–2150 BCE. A granary clerk tallies large quantities of barley by their status: a huge intake of over 900 gur received from one man, smaller amounts held by named individuals, one parcel explicitly booked as an interest-bearing loan, and a batch set aside for milling into groats. It is a snapshot of how grain moved through storage, credit, and processing in one of the earliest territorial empires.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A barley ledger with four entries. First, about 922 gur of barley (a very large stockpile, well over 200,000 liters) received from Minkum. Second, 21-plus gur held by Badzanze. Third, roughly 18 and a half gur out on loan to Gudamišum — explicitly flagged as debt carrying interest. Finally, about 143 and a half gur earmarked for processing into groats, the milled grain used for cooking and brewing. In modern terms: a warehouse account separating grain on hand, grain held by individuals, grain lent at interest, and grain sent for milling.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 922 gur 2 barig 3 ban of barley, 2. from Minkum; 3. 21 gur 2 barig of barley, 4. in the hand of (credited to) Badzanze; 5. 18 gur 2 barig 3 ban of barley, 6. [charged to (lit. "in")] Gudami[šum], 7. (as an) interest-bearing loan; 8. 143 gur 2 barig 3 ban of barley, 9. in the hand of (assigned for) groats.
Our translation engine — Fable 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
1(gesz'u@c) 5(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 2(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) _sze gur_ isz-te4 min-kum 2(u@c) 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) _sze gur_ szu bad3-za-an-ze2 1(u@c) 8(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) _sze gur_ [in] gu2#-da-mi-[szum] hu-bu-lum 2(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) 3(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) _sze gur_ szu _nig2-ar3-ra_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 111. 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 (P213377) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.