Position in chronology
MAD 1, 284
About this tablet
A barley-disbursement account from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A scribe lists measured amounts of barley issued to named individuals — some apparently as fodder for oxen, others explicitly as personal rations covering one, two, or five months. It is the routine bookkeeping of a Mesopotamian household or institutional economy, showing how grain served as both wage and animal feed, and it preserves everyday Akkadian names like Kurub-ilī ('Bless, O gods') and Eštar-nu'id ('Praise Ištar').
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a grain ledger. Four barig of barley for the oxen go to Abba, and four barig each to Si-ḫursag, Dadi, and Kurub-ilī. Then come the personal allowances: Zawi gets 2 gur of barley as his ration for one month; Dada receives 4 gur covering five months; and Eštar-nu'id gets 1 gur and 3 barig as rations for two months. Nothing more — just who got how much barley, and for how long it was supposed to last.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 barig of barley (fodder for) oxen — Abba; 4 barig — Si-ḫursag; 4 barig — Dadi; 4 barig — Kurub-ilī; 2 gur of barley — Zawi: barley ration of 1 month; 4 gur of barley — Dada: barley ration of 5 months; 1 gur 3 barig of barley — Eštar-nu'id: barley ration of 2 months.
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) si-hur-sag 4(barig@c) da-di3 4(barig@c) ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir 2(asz@c) sze gur za-wi sze-ba 1(disz@t) iti 4(asz@c) sze gur da-da sze-ba 5(disz@t) iti 1(asz@c) 3(barig@c) sze gur esz18-dar-nu-id sze-ba 2(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 284. 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 (P215113) — 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.