Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 191
About this tablet
This is a small Akkadian-period administrative tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya) recording quantities of two types of textiles — one called 'nig-la2' cloth and another called 'šagadu' cloth. It reads like a two-part accounting entry: a first batch of garments issued through or from a person named Me-nigin, and a second, larger batch attributed to or held by someone called Ki-mura. Tablets like this were routine bookkeeping in the great institutional households (temple or palace) of Sargonic-period Mesopotamia, where textile production and distribution were tightly tracked commodities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Fifteen 'nig-la2' garments and fourteen 'šagadu' garments were handed over — the batch coming from Me-nigin, and given to the (unnamed) recipient. Separately, twenty-one 'nig-la2' garments and twenty-one 'šagadu' garments are recorded as being in the account of, or held by, a person named Ki-mura. In short: two garment shipments, two garment types, two different people responsible for them — a routine entry in a textile ledger.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 nig-la2 textiles, 14 šagadu garments, from Me-nigin — he gave (them) to him. 21 nig-la2 textiles, 21 šagadu garments, it is (at the disposal of / with) Ki-mura.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(u@c) 5(asz@c) tug2 nig2-la2 1(u@c) 4(asz@c) tug2 sza3-ga-du3 me-nigin3-ta e-na-szum2# 2(u@c) 1(asz@c) tug2 nig2-la2 2(u@c) 1(asz@c) tug2 sza3-ga-du3 ki-mu-ra-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 191. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 090 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472491). 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.