Position in chronology
MAD 4, 051
About this tablet
This is a sales receipt from the Old Akkadian period, around 2300–2150 BCE. A man named Lugal-KA-e bought a male kunga, a prized donkey–onager hybrid used to pull wagons and chariots, from Gala, a man attached to a large cargo boat (a magur-boat), and paid 11 shekels of silver. Four witnesses guaranteed the deal; one of them was a professional merchant. Its exact findspot is unknown, and it is now in the Louvre. The text shows how valuable draught animals changed hands for silver before witnesses in the age of Sargon's dynasty.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Bill of sale: one male kunga, a donkey–onager hybrid. Lugal-KA-e bought the animal from Gala, son of Lugal-kar-e-si, who works on the magur-boat, and paid him 11 shekels of silver. The witnesses were a man whose name is lost (along with his father's), Abu-hadu son of Ur-zu, Lugal-nigbaradu the merchant, and Ama-emega.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse(?) 1. 1 male kunga-equid, 2. from Gala, son of Lugal-kar-e-si, the man of the magur-boat, 3. Lugal-KA-e 4. bought (it). 5. 11 shekels of silver 6. he weighed out to him. 7. [1 PN], 8. [son of ......]; 9. 1 Abu-hadu, 10. son of Ur-zu; 11. 1 Lugal-nigbaradu, the merchant; 12. 1 Ama-emega: 13. they are the witnesses.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. 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
1(asz@c) kunga2-nita2 gala dumu lugal-kar-e-si lu2 ma2-gur8-ka-sze3 lugal-KA-e i3-sze3-sa10 1(u) 1(disz) ku3 gin2 i3-na-la2 [1(asz@c)] [dumu] 1(asz@c) a-bu-ha-du dumu ur-zu 1(asz@c) lugal-nig2-bara3-du10 dam-gar3 1(asz@c) ama-eme2-ga lu2-ki-inim-ma-me
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 051. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215213) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.