Position in chronology
MAD 1, 303
About this tablet
An administrative payroll record from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar, Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A scribe noted out quantities of pure silver and barley distributed per man, then listed the eight recipients by name — among them a professional lamentation-singer, a trade that performed ritual mourning songs. It is a small window onto how an early Mesopotamian institution paid its personnel in both metal and grain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Payment record: 2 shekels and 2 'small' minas of refined silver, plus 5 gur, 1 barig, 1 ban, and 4 sila of barley measured by the standard saggal-gur — that was the allotment per man. The people paid were Tašqītum the lamentation-singer, Dabali, Ešra, Šu-Išḫara, Iliš-takal, Enbu-ilum, Aḫusunu, and Tata. These eight are listed as the ones who received the silver.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 shekels (and) 2 'small' minas of pure silver, 2. 5 gur, 1 barig, 1 ban, 4 sila of barley (in the) saggal-gur (standard measure), 3. — that (being the share) of one man (each) — 4. Tašqītum, 5. the lamentation-singer, 6. Dabali, 7. Ešra, 8. Šu-Išḫara, 9. Iliš-takal, 10. Enbu-ilum, 11. Aḫusunu, 12. Tata: 13. (these are) the receivers of the silver.
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
2(asz@c) _gin2_ 2(asz@c) _ma-na tur ku3-babbar_ el-lum 5(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) 4(disz) _sila3 sze gur sag-gal2_ szu 1(asz@c) _lu2_ ta2-asz2-qi3-tum _balag-di_ da-ba-li esz2-ra szu-isz-ha-ra i3-li2-isz-ta2-kal2 en-bu-dingir a-hu-su-nu ta-ta ma-hi-ru _ku3-babbar_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 303. 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 (P215131) — 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.