Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 289
About this tablet
This is a small administrative roster from Adab (modern Bismaya), likely dating to the Akkadian period, listing individual workers by name and occupation. Each person is counted as '1' and grouped under a craft heading — smith, carpenter, and (probably) reed-worker or mat-weaver. Such lists were the bureaucratic backbone of institutional workshops, used to track personnel assigned to labor duties, rations, or work crews attached to a temple or palace household.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a workers' list. Three men — Da-[x]-ban, Amar-šuba, and Nig-naga — are recorded, one each, as smiths. Two more men, Lugal-engar-zi and Lu-banda, are listed as carpenters. Finally, three more men — Inim-mani-zi, Lugal-lu, and Aba-Enlil — are recorded as reed-workers (the ending of this last profession label is broken off the tablet). It reads like a simple headcount of craftsmen, probably compiled for labor assignment or rationing purposes by a temple or institutional administration.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(aš@c) Da-[x]-ban, 1(aš@c) Amar-šuba, 1(aš@c) Nig₂-na-ga — smith(s). 1(aš@c) Lugal-engar-zi, 1(aš@c) Lu₂-banda₃ — they are carpenters. 1(aš@c) Inim-ma-ni-zi, 1(aš@c) Lugal-lu, 1(aš@c) A-ba-Enlil — they are reed-worker(s) [...].
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
1(asz@c) da-[x]-ba-an 1(asz@c) amar-szubax(|MUSZ3xZA|)# 1(asz@c) nig2-na-ga simug 1(asz@c) lugal-engar-zi 1(asz@c) lu2-banda3 nagar-me 1(asz@c) inim-ma-ni-zi 1(asz@c) lugal-lu 1(asz@c) a-ba-en-lil2 ad-kup4#-[me]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 289. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 159 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472589). 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.