Position in chronology
MAD 1, 329b
About this tablet
A small sale-and-receipt record from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in eastern Iraq), written in Old Akkadian during the Sargonic period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. Oil and barley are valued at two shekels of silver as the purchase price connected with a field, and two men — Tirum and Admar — formally acknowledge receiving the payment. After a damaged stretch, a second receipt clause names a son of Šu-Išḫara alongside Admar. It is a snapshot of ordinary property dealing: payment handed over, receipt acknowledged, names recorded so no one could later dispute it.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: six measures of oil and one gur of barley, valued at two shekels of silver, paid as the purchase price for the field. Tirum and Admar received the payment. The next several lines are too damaged to read. When the text resumes, it records that their [...], the son of Šu-Išḫara, together with Admar, received (payment). In effect, two linked acknowledgements of payment for a land transaction, with the sellers' names on file.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 (measures of) oil, 1 gur of barley — (as) the price: 2 shekels of silver. (For) the field, Tirum and Admar received (it). [...]-nu [...] [...] [...] [...] their [...] son of Šu-Išḫara, (and) Admar received.
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
6(disz) _i3_ 1(asz@c) _sze gur_ _sa10 2(asz@c) gin2 ku3-babbar_ _GAN2_ ti-ru-um u3 ad-mar im-hu-ra [...]-nu# [...] [...] [...] [...] x-szu#-nu# _dumu_ szu-isz-ha-ra ad-mar im-hu-ru
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 329b. 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 (P215156) — 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.