Position in chronology
MAD 4, 041
About this tablet
A private credit memorandum from Umma in southern Iraq during the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300 BCE. It lists a mixed basket of valuables — perfumed cedar oil, aromatics, barley, garlic, beer-bread, linen headbands, hides, and a full plow-ox harness kit — that one individual, Ama-e'a, holds as a claim against a scribe named Šada. It is a small window into personal lending and obligation between named individuals, not just institutional bookkeeping, in one of the world's earliest bureaucratic societies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an IOU-style account. Ama-e'a has the following on credit with the scribe Šada: eleven liters of white cedar oil, two and three-quarter liters of fine aromatic oil, ten minas (about five kilos) of white cedar resin, ten gur of barley and one gur of garlic in the standard large measure, ten loaves of beer-bread, ten linen headbands, five polished hides, and one complete set of gear for a plow ox. In short: Šada the scribe owes Ama-e'a all of the above.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 11 sila of white cedar oil, 2. 3 minus one-quarter (= 2 3/4) sila of oil of fine (lit. "very small") aromatics, 3. 10 minas of white cedar (resin), 4. 10 gur of barley (in the saĝĝal-gur measure), 5. 1 gur of garlic (in the saĝĝal-gur measure), 6. 10 (units of) beer-bread, 7. 10 linen headbands, 8. 5 polished (lit. "shining") hides, 9. 1 complete set of equipment for a plow-ox — 10. Ama-e'a 11. with Šada, the scribe, 12. has (these on account).
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(u) 1(disz) i3 erin babbar2 sila3 3(asz@c) la2 igi-4(disz)-gal2 i3 szim tur-tur sila3 1(u) erin babbar2 ma-na 1(u) sze gur sag-gal2 1(asz) szum2 gur sag-gal2 1(u) bappir 1(u) bar-si gada 5(asz@c) kusz zalag-ga 1(asz@c) szu-kar2 szu-du7-a gu4-apin ama-e2-a sza3-da dub-sar-da i3-da-tuku
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 041. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215203) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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