Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 257
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from Adab recording the distribution of a batch of textiles — five 'bar-dul5' cloaks, the output of weavers — passing through the hands of named individuals (Gigire, Ur-a2) and eventually reaching a leatherworker, dated to the month of the Akiti festival. Such texts were routine bookkeeping in the temple or palace household economies of third-millennium Mesopotamia, tracking who took custody of finished goods and to whom they were finally issued. The mix of a weaver's product ending up with a leatherworker hints at cross-craft supply chains within an institutional workshop.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five 'bar-dul5' cloaks, made by the weavers, went out: Gigire was the recipient, and Ur-a2 took charge of them; they were then handed over to the leatherworker. The next lines are too broken to read clearly, but they mention another weaver and what looks like a further transfer or delivery — the details are lost. The record closes with the month name: Akiti.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5(asz@c) bar-dul5 garments — (product of) the weaver(s) — to Gigire — Ur-a2 took in charge — to the leatherworker — [was] given [to him]. [...] weaver [... to] [...] given? Month: Akiti (festival of the equinox).
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
5(asz@c) bar-dul5 usz-bar gigir2-e ab-dab6 ur-a2 aszgab-ra# [e-na]-szum2# [...] usz#-bar [...]-ra# [...] szum2#? iti a2-ki-ti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 257. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 305 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472557). 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.