Position in chronology
MAD 4, 068
About this tablet
A debt record from the city of Umma in southern Iraq during the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE). A creditor named Ama-e holds a claim of 8 shekels of silver, plus a further 4 shekels reckoned as the accrued charge, against Ilī, the wife of Ilum-andul. Three witnesses are named, and the document is dated by the tenure of Enannatum, governor of Umma — a glimpse of how ordinary credit, involving a woman as debtor, was formalized and dated in early Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a signed IOU. Ilī, the wife of Ilum-andul, owes Ama-e 8 shekels of silver, and on top of that a further charge of 4 shekels has been reckoned against the debt. Three men stood as witnesses to the obligation: a man whose name is partly broken away (A-...), Lugal-ane son of Ur-Suen, and Lugal-KA-gula. The record is dated the way documents were dated then — by who was in office: at that time Enannatum was governor of Umma.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 8 shekels of silver — 2. the deduction (interest) following it: 3. 4 shekels of silver — 4. Ama-[e] 5. against Ilī, 6. the wife of Ilum-andul (Dingir-andul), 7. holds (as a claim). 8. A-[...], 9. Lugal-an[e], 10. son of Ur-Suen, 11. (and) Lugal-KA-gula 12. are the witnesses thereof. 13. At that time Enannatum 14. (was) governor of Umma.
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
8(disz) ku3 gin2 ku5-ra2 us2-a-bi 4(asz@c) ku3 gin2 ama-[e2-e] i3-li dam dingir-an-dul3-da i3-da-tuku a-[...] lugal-an-[ne2] dumu ur-suen lugal-KA-gu-la lu2-ki-inim-ma-bi-me u4-ba en-an-na-tum2 ensi2 umma
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 4, 068. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P215230) — 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.