Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 146
About this tablet
An Akkadian-period administrative tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq) recording the transfer of 60 sealed sheep hides. An official named Ki-ni-du₁₀ delivered them at Adab, while a separate entry notes that the hide of a man named Ur-su was brought in from someone called Nita-me-me. The record closes with an issuance notation, a month name, and a reference to the king — indicating these hides were destined for the royal household or its leather workshops. Tablets like this are the everyday paperwork of palace supply chains: brief, impersonal, and precise about quantities and responsible parties.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Sixty sheep hides, their openings bound and sealed, were handed over by Ki-ni-du₁₀ at Adab — two further details in his entry are now illegible. In a separate note, the hide belonging to Ur-su was brought in from Nita-me-me. The goods were formally issued. This all took place in the month of Mu-tir, recorded against the king's account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine60 sheep hides, sealed at the opening — Ki-ni-du₁₀, [x x], at Adab gave to him. The hide of Ur-su was brought from Nita-me-me. [It was] drawn/issued. Month: Mu-tir. For the king.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(gesz2@c) kusz udu ka kesz2-[ra2?] ki-ni-du10 x x adab#-ki e-na-szum2 kusz ur-su mu-de6-am3 ki nita2-me-me-ta al-zi# iti mu-tir lugal-a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 146. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 070 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472446). 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.