Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 092
About this tablet
An administrative oil-distribution record from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), dating to the Akkadian period, around 2300–2100 BCE. A temple or palace official has logged several allocations of oil in standardized jars — each holding roughly 2⅓ sila (a little over two liters) — to a short list of named recipients. One of those recipients, Nimgir-abzu, bears a name meaning 'Herald of the Abzu,' signalling connections to the temple of Enki, god of freshwater and wisdom. The final entry, for Karkar, may represent a consignment to another institution or city rather than a private individual. Tablets like this were the everyday bookkeeping of Mesopotamian redistribution economies: oil went in, names went down, and the clay record kept the account straight.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A number of oil jars — each holding 2⅓ sila — went to Nam-mahni; how many is lost where the tablet is broken. One jar of oil was issued to Nimgir-abzu, the herald of the Abzu. Another jar, again of 2⅓ sila, went to Iggi. Finally, 11 sila of oil was allocated to Karkar. The opening quantity in the first entry is missing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] oil jar(s), 2⅓ sila [each] — Nam-mahni. 1 oil jar — Nimgir-abzu. 1 oil jar, 2⅓ sila — Iggi. 11 sila of oil — Karkar.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[n] i3 dug 2(disz@t) sila3 igi 3(disz@t)-gal2 nam#-mah-ni 1(asz@c)# i3 dug nimgir-ab-zu 1(asz@c) i3 dug 2(asz@c) sila3 igi 3(disz@t)-gal2 ig-gi 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) i3 sila3 karkar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 092. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 033 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472392). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.