Position in chronology
FAOS 19, pl. 9, Ki 4
About this tablet
A short private letter in Old Akkadian from the city of Kish, written around 2300–2200 BCE during the empire of Akkad. A man named Warassuni writes to a woman, Tašmatum, warning her that two men — Warad-ebum and Bilalum — have run away, and instructing her to arrest them if they show up at her place. It is a vivid glimpse of everyday enforcement in one of the world's first empires: runaway workers or slaves were tracked through personal networks, one clay letter at a time.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Message from Warassuni to Tašmatum: Two men, Warad-ebum and Bilalum, have run off — they are fugitives. If they turn up at your place, arrest them and hold them. That is the whole letter: a terse wanted notice sent to a trusted contact along the runaways' likely route.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. Thus (says) 2. Warassuni 3. to Tašmatum: 4. "1 (man): Warad-ebum, 5. and 1 (man): Bilalum — 6. they are fugitives. 7. If 8. they come to you, 9. seize them!"
Our translation engine — Fable 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
en-ma ARAD2-su2-ni a-na ta2-asz2-ma2-tum 1(asz) ARAD-e-bum u3 1(asz) bi2-la-lum _lu2-zah3-me_ su-ma e-la-ka3-kimx(|LAMxKUR|)? s,a-ab-ti#-su-ni#-ti#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — FAOS 19, pl. 9, Ki 4. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P213215) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
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.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.