Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 178
About this tablet
This tablet is a wool-distribution record from Adab (modern Bismaya in southern Iraq), dating to the Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2150 BCE. It tracks two separate batches of wool collected from a team of wool-workers over two successive months, with a named woman — Nin-ama-mu, whose name means 'Lady is my mother' — receiving a portion in each transaction. Wool was the engine of the ancient Mesopotamian textile industry, and records like this one were the routine paperwork that kept palace and temple workshops running. The tablet's neat double-entry structure, with a shortfall noted in the first batch, suggests a careful accountant tracking discrepancies against an expected total.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
In the month of Nig-kiri6, ten talents of wool were received from the wool-workers — though the delivery was twenty minas short of the expected amount. Nin-ama-mu separately received twenty minas of wool. The following month, Mu-tir, a second batch arrived: four talents and twenty-two minas from the wool-workers, with Nin-ama-mu again taking delivery of twenty-something minas (the exact number is broken). The final lines are too damaged to read fully — they mention ten units for a man whose name is lost, ten for a shepherd, and more wool entries — then the tablet breaks off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 talents of wool, deficit: 20 minas — from the wool-workers received. 20 minas of wool — Nin-ama-mu received. Month: Nig-kiri6. 4 talents [of] wool, 22 minas — from the wool-workers received. 20+[n minas,] Nin-ama-mu — Month: Mu-tir. 10 [for] Lu2-[x x] — 10 [for the] shepherd [...] wool [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(u@c) siki gu2 la2 2(u) ma-na ki siki-ke4-ne szu ba-ti 2(u) siki ma-na nin-ama-mu szu ba-ti iti nig2-kiri6 4(asz@c) siki# gu2# 2(u) 2(disz) ma-na# ki siki-ke4-ne# szu ba-ti# 2(u) [n] nin#-ama-mu# iti# mu#-tir# 1(u) lu2#?-x x 1(u) sipa [...] siki [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 178. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 152 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472478). 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.