Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 296
About this tablet
This small tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya), dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2200 BCE), records five named men being sent to Agade — the capital city founded by Sargon of Akkad, whose exact location is still unknown to archaeologists today. The final word 'palace' marks the authority behind the order, likely the royal administration itself. Texts like this are rare direct evidence of the movement of people and labor between provincial cities like Adab and the imperial center under the Akkadian dynasty.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five men — En-zara, E'a-sar, Duraga, Malagar, and Lugal-kuli — were sent off to the city of Agade. Total: five men. This was done under the authority of the palace.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (man): En-zara 1 (man): E'a-sar 1 (man): Duraga 1 (man): Malagar 1 (man): Lugal-kuli Total: 5 men — to Agade were led/dispatched. Palace.
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) en-za-ra 1(asz@c) e3-a-sar 1(asz@c) du-ra-ga 1(asz@c) ma-la-gar3 1(asz@c) lugal-ku-li szunigin 5(asz@c) lu2 a-ga#-de3-sze3 ba-lah5-esz2 e2-gal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 296. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 104 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472596). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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