Position in chronology
MAD 5, 013
About this tablet
This is a short personnel list from Kish in central Iraq, written in the Sargonic period (about 2300–2150 BCE) when the kings of Akkad ruled Mesopotamia. Workers are counted one by one, and each small group is placed under its own overseer. The names are mostly Akkadian, many built on the word for 'god'. One overseer may be called simply 'the Amorite', which would be an early mention of the western Semitic people who later rose to power in the region. This is everyday labour bookkeeping from the administration of an early empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A list of workers sorted into crews. Imtalik, marked with a note that is not fully clear, belongs to Mututu's crew. Ilulu belongs to Ipqum's crew. Il-qar, marked with the same unclear note, belongs to the crew of Martu, whose name may simply mean 'the Amorite'. Il-galzu (also marked), Ilak-nuid and Ilala make up the crew of Nisu-dannam. Every worker is counted as one person.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning possibly lost) 1. Imtalik, gu₂(?); 2. overseer: Mututu. 3. 1 (man): Ilulu; 4. overseer: Ipqum. 5. 1 (man): DINGIR-qar (Il(um)-qar), gu₂(?); 6. overseer: Martu (or: the Amorite). 7. 1 (man): DINGIR-galzu (Il(um)-galzu), gu₂(?); 8. 1 (man): Ilak-nuid; 9. 1 (man): Ilala; 10. overseer: Nisu-dannam.
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
im6-ta2-lik gu2? ugula mu-tu-tu 1(asz@c) i3-lu-lu ugula ip-qum 1(asz@c) dingir-qar gu2? ugula mar-tu 1(asz@c) dingir-gal-zu gu2? 1(asz@c) i3-la-ak-nu-id 1(asz@c) i3-la-la ugula ni-su-dan-nam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 013. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215340) — 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.