Position in chronology
MAH 16670
About this tablet
An administrative account from the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE), almost certainly from the Lagash region to judge by its calendar. A temple or household steward records the day's regular outlay of six grades of flour and milled barley — from coarse semolina to the finest quality reserved for bread — issued as the fixed daily provisioning. It is dated to the 24th day of the month of the Festival of Baba, the great goddess of Girsu, a reminder that even routine kitchen bookkeeping ran on the religious calendar.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued today as the standing daily allocation: about 215½ liters of coarse barley flour, 40⅓ liters of fine gu-flour, 26½ liters of top-grade bread flour, 20 liters of milled barley, 54⅔ liters of fine sig-flour, and 5 liters of GI-flour (the last entry's label is partly unclear). All of this counts as the regular provisions. Dated in the month of the Festival of Baba, at the close of the 24th day.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 barig 3 ban 2½ sila of dabin-flour (coarse barley flour), 2. 4 ban ⅓ (sila) of fine gu-flour, 3. 2 ban 6½ sila of first-quality flour (for) bread, 4. 2 ban of milled barley, 5. 5 ban 4⅔ (sila) of sig-flour (fine/yellow flour), 6. 5 sila of GI-flour, tablet(?); 7. (these are the) regular provisions (sa₂-du₁₁). 8. Month: "Festival of Baba"; 9. the 24th(?) day having passed.
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(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) 1/2(disz) sila3 dabin 4(ban2@c) 1/3(disz) zi3-gu 2(ban2@c) 6(disz) 1/2(disz) sila3 zi3 sag ninda 2(ban2@c) sze ara3 5(ban2@c) 4(disz) 2/3(disz) zi3-sig15 5(disz) sila3 zi3 GI dub? sa2-du11 iti ezem-ba-ba6 2(u)? 4(disz@t) u4 ba-zal
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAH 16670. 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 (P424297) — 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.