Position in chronology
MAD 1, 273
About this tablet
A barley-disbursement account from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar) in the Old Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A scribe lists eight named individuals — a mix of Akkadian and Sumerian names, typical of this bilingual city — each receiving a measured ration of barley, with the first entry apparently fodder for oxen. The entries are summed in a grand total and dated by the local month name, showing the tight monthly bookkeeping of an early Mesopotamian administration.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A monthly barley ledger: Abba gets 4 barig of barley (fodder for the oxen); Dadi, Kurub-ilī, Si-hursag, Dada, and Eštar-nu'id each get 4 barig as well. Zawi receives the largest share, 4 gur and 1 barig, and Utu-e gets 2 barig. Everything is added up at the bottom: 10 gur of barley minus 3 barig in all, issued in the month of Irisat. The numbers check out — the clerk did the math correctly.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [4 barig of barley, (fodder for) oxen:] 2. Abba; 3. 4 barig: Dadi; 4. 4 barig: Kurub-ilī; 5. 4 barig: Si-hursag; 6. 4 barig: Dada; 7. 4 barig: Eštar-nu'id; 8. 4 gur 1 barig of barley: 9. Zawi; 10. 2 barig: Utu-e; 11. Total: 10 gur less 3 barig of barley. 12. Month: Irisat.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[4(barig@c) sze gu4] abba2# 4(barig@c) da-di3 4(barig@c) ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir 4(barig@c) si-hur-sag 4(barig@c) da-da 4(barig@c) esz18-dar-nu-id 4(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze gur za-wi 2(barig@c) utu-e2 szu-nigin2 1(u@c) la2 3(barig@c) sze gur iti# i-ri2-sa-at
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 273. 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 (P215103) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.