Position in chronology
MAD 1, 301
About this tablet
An Old Akkadian administrative record from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq), roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A scribe tallies large quantities of wool — over 700 kilograms in all — charged to three named men, Šu-Mama, Ida-il, and Puzurrum, and adds them up in a grand total. It is a snapshot of the wool economy that underpinned Mesopotamian textile production, and the arithmetic still checks out perfectly more than four thousand years later.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A wool ledger with three entries and a sum. Šu-Mama is down for 8 talents less 3 minas of wool (that is, 7 talents 57 minas); Ida-il for 8 talents 40 minas; and Puzurrum for 8 talents less 13 minas (7 talents 47 minas). Bottom line: 24 talents and 24 minas of wool altogether — on the order of 730 kilograms. The subtractive notation ('8 talents minus 3 minas') is the scribe's standard shorthand, and the three entries add up exactly to the stated total.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 8 talents less 3 minas of wool — 2. Šu-Mama; 3. 8 talents 40 minas of wool — 4. Ida-il; 5. 8 talents less 13(?) minas — 6. Puzurrum. 7. Total: 24 talents 24 minas of wool.
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
8(asz@c) gu2 la2 3(asz@c) ma-na siki szu-ma-ma 8(asz@c) gu2 4(u@c) ma-na siki i-da-dingir 8(asz@c) gu2 la2 1(u@c) 3(asz@c)#? ma-na puzur4-ru-um szu-nigin2 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) gu2 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) ma-na siki
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 301. 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 (P215129) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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