Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 302
About this tablet
This is a small livestock accounting tablet, probably from the Adab region in the Old Akkadian period. It lists modest allotments of animals — a category called 'gir' (possibly small stock such as kids, though the sign can also mean 'foot' or 'dagger'), oxen (gu4), and mature cows (ab2-mah2) — each assigned to or associated with a named individual, including officials called 'man of the wool-house.' The tablet closes with the note that the transaction was conveyed by (or under the authority of) an official named Gula, a routine feature of Mesopotamian bookkeeping that names the person responsible for moving goods between accounts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record tracks small numbers of animals distributed among several named people. Two head of 'gir' livestock and one ox go under one heading (Ugu-du); two gir go to a man named Lugal-zi; two oxen to Ur-Utu; one ox to Azuzu; one gir to Nimgir-abzu; and a further allotment of gir (the exact count is partly broken) to a man identified as the wool-house attendant. Separately, three mature cows are recorded, followed by a name (Ama-ab), and then two more mature cows assigned again to the wool-house attendant. The whole transaction is noted as having been carried out by (or under) an official named Gula, described with the epithet 'great/elder.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 gir(-animals), 1 ox 2. Ugu-du 3. 2 gir(-animals) — Lugal-zi 4. 2 oxen — Ur-Utu 5. 1 ox — Azuzu 6. 1 gir(-animal) — Nimgir-abzu 7. 1 [+n] gir(-animal[s]) — the man of the wool-house (siki-gi) 8. 3 mature cows 9. Ama-ab 10. 2 mature cows 11. the man of the wool-house (siki-gi) 12. conveyed by Gula, the elder/great
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
2(asz@c) gir# 1(asz@c) gu4# ugu2-du3# 2(asz@c) gir lugal-zi 2(asz@c) gu4 ur-utu 1(asz@c) gu4 a-zu-zu 1(asz@c) gir nimgir-ab#-zu 1(asz@c)# [n] gir# lu2# siki-gi 3(asz@c) ab2#-mah2 ama-ab# 2(asz@c) ab2-mah2# lu2 siki-gi giri3-ne2 gu-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 302. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 101 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472602). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.