Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 083
About this tablet
An Akkadian-period accounting tablet, probably from the city of Adab in southern Iraq (roughly 2350–2150 BCE), recording the distribution of dates from a named orchard. Multiple individuals or work-groups received allocations of varying sizes — from small fractions up to larger measured amounts — with a declared grand total of 4 gur, a substantial quantity by any reckoning. The orchard is identified as belonging to or managed by A-ḫu-du10, son of A-ba-da-sa2, almost certainly a local landholder or estate official under the Sargonic empire. Damage has erased all the recipients' names, leaving only the quantities and the closing attribution — the skeleton of a once-complete distribution record.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet tracks a payout of dates from the orchard of A-ḫu-du10, son of A-ba-da-sa2. Eleven separate entries record amounts given to different individuals or groups — some receiving measures in barig, others in the smaller ban2 unit — but nearly every recipient's name has been lost to damage on the surface of the clay. When the scribe added it all up, the total came to 4 gur of dates, a large harvest disbursement. What survives is the accounting skeleton of an estate's date-palm output, a routine but revealing piece of economic paperwork from the age of the Sargonic empire.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 [PN] — 2 barig [PN] — 4 [asz] 2 barig [PN] — 3[+] [asz] 2[+] barig (damaged) [PN] — 2 [asz] 2 barig [PN] — 1[+] [asz] 2[+] barig (damaged) 4 [PN] — [1 barig] 4 [PN] — [n] (quantity lost) 4 [PN] — 4 ban2 (damaged) 3 [PN] — 3 ban2 (damaged) [PN] — 2 ban2 (damaged) 2 [PN] — 1 ban2 Grand total: 4 gur of dates Orchard of A-ḫu-du10, son of A-ba-da-sa2
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(disz) () 2(barig@c) () 4(asz) 2(barig@c) () 3(asz)# 2(barig@c)# () 2(asz) 2(barig@c) () 1(asz)# 2(barig@c)# 4(disz) () [1(barig@c)] 4(disz) () [n] 4(disz) () 4(ban2@c)# 3(disz) () 3(ban2@c)# () 2(ban2@c)# 2(disz) () 1(ban2@c) szunigin 4(asz@c) zu2-lum gur kiri6 a-hux(RI)-du10 dumu a-ba-da-sa2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 083. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 010 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472383). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.