Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 180
About this tablet
An administrative wool-accounting tablet from the ancient city of Adab in southern Iraq, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2334–2154 BCE). Two consignments of wool — one bale weighing 23 minas and three bales weighing 18 minas — are listed separately and then combined under a grand-total formula yielding four bales at 41 minas in all. The arithmetic closes perfectly, a hallmark of trained scribal practice. Wool was among the most important commodities managed by Mesopotamian temples and palaces of this era, underpinning a large-scale textile industry whose records survive in the thousands.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The first entry covers one bale of wool weighing 23 minas, with a partial note — possibly naming a source or describing an action — that the damage has made unreadable. The second entry is three bales of wool weighing 18 minas, identified as coming from a specific place. The scribe then totals everything up: four bales, 41 minas of wool. A closing line confirms the amount is in stock. The lines in between the two main entries are too damaged to read with confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 [bale of] wool — 23 minas, [...] ...-a, was [drawn out/weighed from], 3 [bales of] wool — 18 [minas]; — (these) are wools from [the] place. Total: 4 [bales of] wool — 41 minas. [...] is available/on hand.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) siki gu2 2(u) 3(disz) ma-na x ka-a am3-ta-al-a 3(asz@c) siki gu2 2(u) la2 2(disz)# ma-na ki siki-me szunigin# 4(asz@c) siki gu2 4(u) 1(disz) ma-na# [...] gal2#-la#-am3#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 180. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 142 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472480). 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.