Position in chronology
MAD 1, 293
About this tablet
An administrative barley account from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A scribe records barley issued to eight named individuals — most receiving an identical standard amount — with the whole lot labelled 'barley for the oxen', i.e. fodder grain handed out to men responsible for plow- or draft-oxen. Tablets like this are the everyday bookkeeping of an agricultural estate, and the final total (carefully written as '10 gur minus 3 barig') shows the scribe checking his own arithmetic.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a fodder-grain ledger for one month, the month of Ḫalūt. Six men — Abba, Kurub-ilī, Si-ḫursag, Dadi, Dada, and Eštar-nuʾid — each drew 4 barig of barley (roughly 240 liters apiece). Zawi drew a much larger share, 4 gur and 1 barig, and Utu-e₂ took 2 barig. Altogether that comes to 10 gur less 3 barig of barley, all of it issued as feed for the oxen. The numbers add up exactly: 47 barig disbursed against a stated total of 47.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 barig (of barley) — Abba; 2. 4 barig — Kurub-ilī; 3. 4 barig — Si-ḫursag; 4. 4 barig — Dadi; 5. 4 barig — Dada; 6. 4 barig — Eštar-nuʾid; 7. 4 gur 1 barig of barley — 8. Zawi; 9. [2 barig] — Utu-e₂. 10. Total: 10 gur less 3 barig of barley — 11. barley for the oxen. 12. Month: Ḫalūt.
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) abba2 4(barig@c) ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir 4(barig@c) si-hur-sag 4(barig@c) da-di3 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 szunigin 1(u@c) la2 3(barig@c) sze gur sze gu4 iti ha-lu5-ut
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 293. 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 (P215122) — 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.