Position in chronology
MAD 5, 004
About this tablet
This is a short personnel list from Kish in central Iraq, written in the Sargonic period around 2300–2200 BCE, when the kings of Akkad ruled Mesopotamia. Four men, all with Akkadian (Semitic) names, are counted one by one and assigned in pairs to two destinations or purposes. These are the kind of names and records an Akkadian-speaking town kept as it called men up for work, military service or duties elsewhere. The names are revealing: 'Eštar-nu'id' means 'Praise Ištar' and 'Ili-tukulti' means 'My god is my trust', a glimpse of personal piety in the everyday paperwork of the first Mesopotamian empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two men, Ilulu son of Eštar-nu'id and Šaṭpum son of Meduk(?)la, are assigned 'for the bar', a destination or duty whose exact meaning is unclear. Two more, Edamu son of Ila-nu'id and Ili-tukulti, are assigned 'for Aḫa'. This could be a place or person called Aḫa, or simply 'to the other side'. Each man is counted as one person.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (person): Ilulu, son of Eštar-nu'id; 1 (person): Šaṭpum, son of Meduk(?)la — for (the) BAR. 1 (person): Edamu, son of Ila-nu'id; 1 (person): Ili-tukulti — for Aḫa (or: for the side / the other one).
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) i3-lu-lu _dumu_ esz18-dar-nu-id 1(asz@c) sza-at,-pum _dumu_ me-duk!?-la a-na bar 1(asz@c) e2-da-mu _dumu_ i3-la-nu-id 1(asz@c) i3-li2-tu3-kul2-ti a-na a-ha
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 004. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215332) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (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.