Position in chronology
HSS 10, 150
About this tablet
An administrative account from Gasur — the site later known as Nuzi, in northern Iraq — written in the time of the Akkadian empire, around 2300 BCE. It records disbursements of flour of several grades (emmer flour, coarse dabin-flour, fine groats) and hundreds of loaves of bread and beer-bread to named individuals, including two men called Išma-ilum distinguished as 'the elder' and 'the younger', and a merchant. It is a snapshot of provisioning and food distribution at a provincial Akkadian town, the kind of everyday bookkeeping that kept an estate or household running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a food-issue ledger, damaged at top and bottom. The readable entries say: Surini handed over a quantity of old flour and one gur of emmer flour to someone whose name is lost; 1 gur and 2 barig of coarse-ground flour from Surini's stock went to Išma-ilum the younger; 200 loaves of bread and fine beer-bread went to Išma-ilum the elder; several gur of fine groats went to a man whose name may be Tabsiga, and more of the same to a merchant whose name is only partly preserved. The opening lines named further recipients — one apparently with a name ending in -Eštar, another called Zuzu — but those entries are broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning broken) 1. [......] for [...] 2. [... Eš]tar (?PN ending in -Eštar) 3. [...]-bil 4. [...] Zuzu 5. [... n] old za-flour; 1 gur of emmer flour — 6. Surini gave (it) to him; 7. 1 gur 2 barig of dabin-flour — flour of Surini — 8. (for) Išma-ilum the younger; 9. 200 loaves of bread, juniper(-flavored?), fine beer-bread — 10. (for) Išma-ilum the elder; 11. [n] gur of fine groats — 12. (for) [Tab]siga(?); 13. [n gur of] fine [gro]ats — 14. (for) [...]-ilum, the merchant; 15. [...] ... [...] (rest broken)
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
[...]-SZE3 [... esz18]-dar [...]-bil3 [...] zu-zu [...] zi3 za libir 1(asz@c) zi3 imgaga3 gur su-ri2-ni i-di3-szum 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) zi3 dabin gur zi3 su-ri2-ni isz-ma2-dingir tur 3(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) ninda li bappir saga isz#-ma2-dingir gal [n nig2]-ar3-ra gur saga [tab6?]-si-ga [n nig2-ar3]-ra gur saga [...]-x-dingir dam-gar3 [...]-x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 150. 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 (P213415) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.