Position in chronology
MAD 1, 001
About this tablet
A simple roster of ten men written at Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq) during the Old Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2150 BCE. Lists like this were the working paperwork of an administration — personnel receiving rations, assigned to a task, or witnessing a transaction — though this tablet gives only the names themselves. It is historically valuable because the names mix Akkadian and Sumerian elements, a snapshot of the bilingual society of the Diyala region, and because the last man is identified as a gala, a lamentation priest, showing cult personnel embedded in everyday economic records.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a name list — essentially a personnel roster. Ten individuals are recorded, one per line: Izzinum, ŠU.BAD, Si-ḫursag, Kurub-ilī ('Pray to the gods'), Dadī, Ilum-kimat ('God is the family'), Šu-Mama ('The one belonging to the goddess Mama'), Zunānum, Kirbānum, and Bēlī-ursag ('My lord is a hero'), this last man noted as a lamentation priest. No quantities, totals, or purpose clause survive on what was supplied, so we cannot say whether these men were drawing rations, serving a work detail, or standing as witnesses — only that an Ešnunna scribe needed their names on record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. Izzinum 2. ŠU.BAD 3. Si-ḫursag 4. Kurub-ilī ('Pray-to-the-gods') 5. Dadī 6. Ilum-kimat ('The-god-is-the-family') 7. Šu-Mama ('He-of-(the-goddess)-Mama') 8. Zunānum 9. Kirbānum 10. Bēlī-ursag ('My-lord-is-a-hero'), 11. the lamentation priest (gala)
Our translation engine — Fable 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
i-zi#-num2 SZU.BAD si-hur-sag ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir da-di3 dingir-ki2-ma-at szu-ma-ma# zu#-na-num2 kir-ba-num2 be-li2-ur-sag gala#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 001. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P214971) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.