Position in chronology
MAH 16229
About this tablet
An administrative barley account from the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300 BCE, now in Geneva. A scribe records sizeable issues of barley — one batch to a named individual, another as rations for a household administrator — measured by the capacity standard of Agade, the capital city founded by Sargon that archaeologists have never located. The entries are summed as an 'expenditure' total of 54 gur (less a small deduction), apparently under an official named Šeš-šeš. It is everyday bookkeeping, but its explicit appeal to the 'Agade' measure shows the capital's standards reaching into provincial accounting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An expense ledger for barley, kept in the official measure of Agade. About 30 gur plus 2 ban went to a person whose name is written I-IS-ḪUR-sinat; another 11 gur, 3 barig and 2 ban were paid out as rations for the estate manager. One or two further entries in the middle are too damaged to read — one seems to involve the cupbearer. The bottom line: 54 gur of barley, less 2 ban, booked as outgoing expenditure, under the responsibility of a man apparently called Šeš-šeš.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 30(?) gur 2 ban of barley, in the great gur of Agade — 2. (for/of) I-IS-ḪUR-sinat; 3. 11 gur 3 barig 2 ban of barley, in the gur of Agade(-«ki», sign erased) — 4. barley rations of the household administrator (šabra); 5. ... [...] ... [...] 6. the cupbearer(?) ... ... (...); 7. 54 gur minus 2 ban of barley, in the gur of Agade: 8. expenditure (booked out). 9. Šeš-šeš(?).
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
3(u@c)#? 2(ban2@c) sze gur a-ga-de3 mah i-IS-HUR-si-na-at 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) 3(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) sze gur a-ga-de3-<<ki>>-ka sze-ba szabra x [...] x [...] sagi#? x x (x) 5(u@c) 4(asz@c) la2 2(ban2@c) sze gur a-ga-de3 zi-ga szesz#?-szesz
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAH 16229. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland (P424110) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.