Position in chronology
MAD 1, 318
About this tablet
A small delivery note from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It is an inventory of timber and orchard trees — apples, poplars, and several species we can no longer identify with certainty — totalled up and carried into the city by a man named Imutum. Such terse records show how closely the Akkadian administration tracked even modest consignments of wood, a scarce and valuable resource in the Mesopotamian plain.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Delivery receipt: 2 very large še-du trees, 4 large ones, and 2 ordinary ones; 5 mountain apple trees; 1 very large poplar and 1 regular poplar; 2 biradan trees; 15 u-trees; and 2 apple trees. Grand total: 38 trees (written as 'forty less two'). Imutum transported the lot to the city of Ešnunna. In short, a one-page shipping manifest for a load of orchard and timber trees brought into town by a named carrier.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [2] very large še-du₁₀-trees, 2. 4(?) la[rge] še-du₁₀-trees, 3. 2 še-du₁₀-trees, 4. 5 mountain apple trees, 5. 1 very large poplar, 6. 1 poplar, 7. [2] biradan-trees, 8. [1]5 u-trees, 9. 2 apple trees; 10. total: 40(?) less 2 (= 38) trees. 11. Imutum 12. to Išnun (Ešnunna) 13. brought (them).
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[2(asz@c) _]sze-du10 gal-gal#_ 4(asz@c)#? _sze-du10 gal#-[gal_] 2(asz@c) _sze-du10_ 5(asz@c) _haszhur kur#_ 1(asz@c) _ildag3 gal-gal_ 1(asz@c) _ildag3_ [2(asz@c)] bi-ra-da-an [1(u@c)] 5(asz@c) _u3_ 2(asz@c) _haszhur_ szunigin 4(u@c)#? _la2_ 2(asz@c) _gesz_ i-mu-tum a-na isz-nun u-bil3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 318. 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 (P215146) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.