Position in chronology
MAD 1, 306
About this tablet
An administrative account from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in eastern Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. A clerk records barley allotments to four named individuals — including a woman simply called 'the Subarian' — alongside a count of calves, sheep, and a goat kid, and then adds up the barley in two running totals for the month called Irisat. The arithmetic actually works out, a small testament to the precision of ancient bookkeeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Monthly barley ledger for the month of Irisat. Four people — Baba, Subarītum, Silabat, and Tudašar-libiš — each received 1 gur and 1 barig of barley in the standard sag-gal measure, which comes to 5 gur altogether, as the first total confirms. The account also lists 19 male calves, 12 sheep, and 1 female goat kid, plus two further barley amounts: just under 2 gur (2 gur minus 3 ban) and 1 gur 1 barig 1 ban 5 sila. Those two barley entries add up to the second total on the tablet, 3 gur 4 ban 5 sila. Everything balances.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 gur 1 barig of barley, (measured in the) sag-gal₂ (gur) — 2. (for) Baba; 3. 1 gur 1 barig — (for) Subarītum; 4. 1 gur 1 barig — (for) Silabat; 5. 1 gur 1 barig — (for) Tudašar-libiš; 6. 20 minus 1 (= 19) male calves; 7. 2 gur minus 3 ban of barley; 8. 12 sheep, 1 female (goat) kid; 9. 1 gur 1 barig 1 ban 5 sila of barley; 10. Total: 5 gur of barley, (in the) sag-gal₂ (gur); 11. Total: 3 gur 4 ban 5 sila of barley; 12. 1 month: Irisat.
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
1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze gur sag-gal2 ba-ba 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) su-ba-ri2-tum 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) si-la-ba-at 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) tu-da-szar3-li-bi2-isz 2(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) amar-nita 2(asz@c) la2 3(ban2@c) sze gur 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) udu 1(asz@c) asz2-gar3 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) 5(disz) sila3 sze gur szunigin 5(asz@c) sze gur sag-gal2 szunigin 3(asz@c) 4(ban2@c) 5(disz) sila3 sze gur 1(disz@t) iti i-ri2-sa-at
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 306. 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 (P215134) — 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.