Position in chronology
MAD 4, 035
About this tablet
An accountant's barley ledger from the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE) at Umma in southern Iraq. It lists nine named men — among them a forester, a household overseer, and a brewer — each holding a quantity of barley, and closes by assigning the whole lot to the 'forest' establishment of a man named Ur-Suen, noting the grain is deposited with the listed individuals. It is a small window into how a provincial institution tracked grain parked out among its staff, each man personally accountable for his share.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a grain account: twenty gur of barley (standard measure) are booked to Gurgulum; six each to Kaku and to Dada, son of Kar; and five each to Baragani the forester, Dudu of Ki-til, Kaše, Ur-e the household overseer, Lugal-DU, and Ur-lu the brewer. The clerk totals it at fifty-two gur of barley, states that it belongs to the forest establishment of Ur-Suen, and records that the grain is currently held on deposit with these men. The closing date — year and month — is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine20 gur (damaged numeral), in the sag-gal-ku (measure) — Gurgulum; 6 (gur): KA-ku (Kaku); 6 (gur): Dada, son of Kar; 5 (gur): Baragani, the man of the forest (forester); 5 (gur): Dudu, (of) Ki-til; 5 (gur): Kaše; 5 (gur): Ur-e, overseer of the house(hold); 5 (gur): Lugal-DU; 5 (gur): Ur-lu, the brewer; Total: 52 gur of barley in the sag-gal-ku (measure). It is (grain) of the forest(-establishment) of Ur-Suen; it is on deposit with them. ... year, ... month (date traces, broken).
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(u)# gur sag-gal2-ku3 gur8-gu-lum 6(asz) KA-ku3 6(asz) da-da dumu kar 5(asz) bara2-ga-ni lu2 tir 5(asz) du-du ki-til 5(asz) ka-sze3 5(asz) ur-e2 ugula e2 5(asz) lugal-DU 5(asz) ur-lu2 lu2 lunga3 szunigin 5(u) 2(asz) sze gur sag-gal2-ku3 tir ur-suen-ka-kam i3-neda-gal2 x mu x iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 035. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215197) — 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.