Position in chronology
HSS 10, 128
About this tablet
A small administrative ration list from Gasur — the town in northern Iraq that would later be known as Nuzi — written in the Old Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A scribe records equal allotments of two ban (about 20 liters) of a staple, most likely grain, to a series of named individuals, then adds them up. It is everyday accounting from one of the earliest Semitic-speaking provincial administrations, showing the Akkadian imperial bookkeeping system at work far from the capital.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A distribution list: seven people each receive two ban (roughly 20 liters) of provisions — Šumama, two men whose names begin with Pù-, a Bēlī-so-and-so, a Barí-so-and-so, and two whose names begin with I-; the ends of most names are broken off. At the bottom the clerk totals it up: three barig and three ban in all. Since the total is larger than the surviving entries account for, a few lines of the list have evidently been lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 1. 2 ban: Šu-ma-[ma], 2. 2 ban: I-[...], 3. 2 ban: Pù-[...], 4. 2 ban: Pù-[...], 5. 2 ban: Bēlī-[...], 6. 2 ban: Ba-rí-[...], 7. [2 ban]: I-[...]. 8. Total: 3 barig 3 ban [...].
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(ban2@c) szu-ma#-[ma] 2(ban2@c) i3-[...] 2(ban2@c) pu3-[...] 2(ban2@c) pu3-[...] 2(ban2@c) be-li2-[...] 2(ban2@c) ba-ri2#-[...] [2(ban2@c)] i3-[...] szunigin 3(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 128. 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 (P213393) — 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.