Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 321
About this tablet
This is a small Sargonic-period (Akkadian, roughly 2300–2200 BCE) administrative tally recording four successive deliveries or measurements of grain (or another bulk good) counted in gurdub-containers, each holding a standard 2 ban2 measure. The scribe totals the four installments — 20, 25, 20, and 15 containers — to a grand sum of 80, and appears to have added a note on the silver value of the goods, though that line and the one following it are broken. It is the kind of routine bookkeeping record — a running tally of repeated deliveries — that filled the archives of Sargonic-period estates and institutions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a running tally of grain deliveries measured out in standard containers. The record lists four separate deliveries: 20 containers, then 25, then 20, then 15, each container holding the same fixed amount (2 ban2). After the fourth delivery the scribe notes the silver value of the goods, but that part of the tablet is broken and unreadable, as is the line after it. At the bottom the scribe totals everything up: 80 containers delivered across the four rounds.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine20 gurdub-containers, 2 ban2 (each) — 1st time (delivery). 25 gurdub-containers, 2 ban2 (each) — 2nd time. 20 gurdub-containers, 2 ban2 (each) — 3rd time. 15 gurdub-containers, 2 ban2 (each) — 4th time. Its silver: [...] x x (broken) [...] ... x (broken) Total: 80 (1(gesz2) 20) gurdub-containers.
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(u@c) gurdub# 2(ban2@c) a-ra2 1(disz)-kam 2(u@c) 5(asz@c) gurdub 2(ban2@c) a-ra2 2(disz)-kam 2(u@c) gurdub 2(ban2@c) a#-ra2 3(disz)-kam 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) gurdub 2(ban2@c) a#-ra2# 4(disz)#-kam# ku3-[bi?] x x [...] ka# x szunigin# 1(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) gurdub
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 321. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 300 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472621). 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.