Position in chronology
MAD 1, 330
About this tablet
A barley disbursement account from Ešnunna in the Diyala valley, east of Babylon, written during the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE). A scribe lists nine named individuals — a mix of Akkadian and Sumerian names like Dada, Kurub-ilī ('Bless, O gods') and Utu-e — each receiving a measured amount of grain, with the first entry earmarked as fodder for oxen. The sums are then totalled and dated to a local month, a snapshot of routine payroll-and-fodder bookkeeping in one of the earliest territorial empires.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a monthly grain ledger. Dada gets 4 barig of barley for the oxen (the start of his line is damaged); Si-ḫursag, Dadī, Kurub-ilī, Abba and Eštar-nu'id each get 4 barig, every entry ticked off with a check mark; Mansa-ninsu receives 2 gur; Zawi gets the largest share, 4 gur and 1 barig; and Utu-e gets 2 barig. The clerk adds it all up — 11 gur and 2 barig of barley in total — and dates the account to the month Zalliltum. The arithmetic checks out exactly.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 barig [...] barley (for) the oxen — 2. Dada; 3. 4 barig, PAP (check mark): Si-ḫursag; 4. 2 gur of barley: Mansa-ninsu; 5. 4 barig, PAP: Dadī; 6. 4 barig, PAP: Kurub-ilī; 7. 4 barig, PAP: Abba; 8. 4 barig, PAP: Eštar-nu'id; 9. 4 gur 1 barig of barley: 10. Zawi; 11. 2 barig: Utu-e; 12. Total: [1]1 gur 2 barig of barley. 13. [Month:] Zalliltum.
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
4(barig@c) [...] sze gu4# da-da 4(barig@c) PAP si-hur-sag 2(asz@c) sze gur ma-an-sa-nin-su 4(barig@c) PAP da-di3 4(barig@c) PAP# ku-ru-ub-dingir-dingir 4(barig@c) PAP abba2 4(barig@c) PAP esz18-dar-nu-id 4(asz@c) 1(barig@c) sze gur za-wi 2(barig@c) utu-e2 szunigin [1(u@c)] 1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze gur [iti] za#-lil2-tum
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 330. 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 (P215157) — 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.