Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 165
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from Adab, in southern Mesopotamia, recording disbursements of garlic (or onion) rations to several named individuals or institutions during the Akkadian period. A scribe tallied five separate allotments — 3, 4, 11, 3, and 3 units — which sum exactly to the stated grand total of 24, a nice confirmation that the arithmetic on the tablet checks out even where names and details are broken away. The closing note that 'the deficit has not been cleared' shows this was a working account, tracking not just what was distributed but what still remained outstanding — the mundane bookkeeping of a Bronze Age storehouse.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record tracks garlic issued from a storehouse in Adab. Three units went to a man named Mes-[...]; four units went to a household or institution whose name is now lost; eleven units and then three more (the latter described as coming 'from the well' or a place by that name) went to parties no longer legible; a note marks 'year 2'; and a final three units went to someone identified only by a name ending in '-na.' Adding it all up, the scribe records a total of 24 units of garlic distributed. But the account isn't settled — a line notes that a deficit remains unpaid, and the tablet closes with a year-name that is now broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[3 units of garlic] — Mes-[...], 4 units — the house/institution of [...], 11 units — [...], 3 units — from the well (or: at the cistern), year 2, 3 units — in the hand of [PN]-na, Total: 24 units of garlic. The deficit has not been cleared. Year: [...].
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[3(asz@c) szum] mes#?-[...] 4(asz@c) e2#?-[...] 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) [...] 3(asz@c) tul8#-ta# mu 2(disz) 3(asz@c) szu-na# szunigin 2(u@c) 4(asz@c)# szum la2-ia3 nu-ta-e3#-[am3] mu x [x]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 165. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 291 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472465). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (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.