Position in chronology
MAD 1, 295
About this tablet
A monthly barley-ration account from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in the Diyala region of Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A scribe lists eight named men and the amount of grain each received for the month of Za'atum, then adds it all up. Tablets like this are the routine payroll paperwork of an early Mesopotamian administration — and the mix of Akkadian and Sumerian personal names gives a glimpse of the bilingual society of the Sargonic state.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a grain payroll for one month, the month of Za'atum. Dadi, Si-ḫursag, Dada, Kurub-ilī, Abba, and Eštar-nu'id each received 4 barig of barley (roughly 240 liters apiece); Utu-e received half that, 2 barig; and Zawi received a much larger allotment of 4 gur and 1 barig. The clerk totals the account at 10 gur less 3 barig of barley — and the arithmetic checks out exactly on a 5-barig gur.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 barig of barley — Dadi; 2. 4 barig — Si-ḫursag; 3. 4 barig — Dada; 4. 4 barig — Kurub-ilī; 5. 4 barig — Abba; 6. 4 barig — Eštar-nu'id; 7. 2 barig — Utu-e; 8. 4 gur 1 barig of barley — 9. Zawi. 10. Total: 10 gur less 3 barig of barley. 11. One month: (the month) Za'atum.
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 da-di3 4(barig@c) si-hur-sag 4(barig@c) da-da 4(barig@c) ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir 4(barig@c) abba2 4(barig@c) esz18#-dar#-nu-id 2(barig@c) utu-e2!(SA) 4(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze# gur za-wi szunigin 1(u@c) la2 3(barig@c) sze gur 1(disz@t) iti za-'a3-tum
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 295. 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 (P215123) — 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.