Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 251
About this tablet
This is a small Sargonic-period (Akkadian) administrative memorandum from Adab, recording quantities of pig fat and animal hides — sheep and ox — that passed through the hands of a local governor's office and were then processed and handed over to a leatherworker named Ur-a. The note ties the transaction to a royal food offering (nidba lugal), showing how craft production and provisioning for the king's table were interlinked in the bureaucracy of a Mesopotamian provincial city around the 23rd century BCE. It is exactly the kind of routine bookkeeping — commodities in, commodities out, dated by month — that made up the bulk of Sargonic administrative archives.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short accounting note from the city of Adab. It records an unspecified amount of lard along with 20 sheep hides, handled under the authority of a governor (his name is broken, only partly preserved as 'Dugan...'), which were then processed. A further 1/3 sila of lard and 1 ox hide were likewise processed. A fragmentary line connects this to a royal food offering involving a donkey. The goods were then handed over to a leatherworker named Ur-a. A closing note marks the fat as an expenditure entry, and the record is dated to the month called Niĝkiri'a, the 'garden month.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] sila3 of lard (pig-fat). 20 sheep hides — (in) Dugan[...], the governor — he processed (it). 1/3 sila3 of lard, 1 ox hide — he processed (it). ... the donkey — it is the royal offering (nidba lugal). Ur-a — to the leatherworker (aszgab) — he gave (it) to him. The fat/oil: booked out (expenditure). Month: Niĝkiri'a ("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
[n] i3#-szah2# sila3 2(u@c) kusz udu du10-gan [x x]-ka ensi2# ab-ak 1/3(asz@c) i3-szah2 sila3 1(asz@c)# kusz gu4 ab-ak ka SU ansze nidba2 lugal-kam ur-a2 aszgab-ra e-na-szum2# i3 zi-ga-a iti nig2-kiri6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 251. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 248 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472551). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.