Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 235
About this tablet
This is a small metalworker's account tablet from Adab, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2100 BCE). It records batches of bronze objects — some overlaid or alloyed with gold, some with silver, some plain copper-bronze — each batch given a total weight in mana, and notes that the goods were received by or accounted to a smith named Dada. Such texts are common in the administrative archives of Early Bronze Age Mesopotamian temples and workshops, where scribes tracked precious and base metals issued to craftsmen for fabrication or repair of objects; the closing month-name anchors the transaction to the local calendar.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a workshop account. It lists three lots of bronze items: four pieces trimmed or fitted with gold, weighing 1 mana total; nineteen pieces with silver, weighing an unclear amount ending in 4 mana (the tens digit is broken away); and thirty plain bronze/copper pieces weighing 15 mana. The record notes that these were received and accounted for by Dada, the smith. It was recorded in the month called 'Garden' (Nig-kiriak).
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 (units) bronze, gold — their weight: 1 mana. 19 (units) bronze, silver — their weight: [...]+4 mana. 30 (units) bronze, copper-bronze — their weight: 15 mana. "Returned to hand" (received/accounted for): Dada, he is the smith. Month: "Nig-kiri" (Garden-month).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
4(asz@c) zabar ku3-sig17 ki-la2-bi# 1(asz@c) ma-na 1(u@c) 9(asz@c)# zabar ku3-babbar ki#-[la2-bi n] 4(asz@c) ma-na 3(u@c) zabar uruda-zabar ki-<la2-bi> 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) ma-na szu-a gi4-a da-da simug-kam iti nig2-kiri6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 235. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 073 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472535). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.