Position in chronology
HSS 10, 010
About this tablet
A short private letter in Old Akkadian from Gasur (the later Nuzi, in northern Iraq), written around 2300 BCE. A man named Ursa instructs his correspondent Ilī to keep three named men confined in a detention house until he himself arrives — and, in the same breath, to send him two sixty-litre measures of chickpeas and lentils. It is a vivid glimpse of everyday authority and provisioning in the age of the Akkadian empire: detention orders and grocery requests on the same small tablet.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Message from Ursa to Ilī: Hold these three men — Aḫu-sunu, Bisasa, and Ilī-ištakal — in the detention house until I get there; they are to stay put. Also, have someone send me one barig (about 60 liters) of chickpeas and one barig of lentils.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. Thus (says) 2. Ursa: 3. to Ilī 4. speak! 5. [1] Aḫu-sunu, 6. 1 Bisasa, 7. 1 Ilī-ištakal — 8. in the house of detention 9–11. until I come, let them stay. 12. 1 barig of large legumes (chickpeas), 13. 1 barig of small legumes (lentils) 14. let him send to me.
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# ur-sa6 a-na i3-li2 qi2-bi2-ma [1(asz@c)] a-hu-su4-nu 1(asz@c) bi2-sa-sa 1(asz@c) i3-li2-isz-ta2-kal2 in _e2_ ki-sze3-er-tim [a]-di3#-ma [a]-la-kam li-isz-bu 1(barig@c) _gu2-gu2 gal-gal_ 1(barig@c) _gu2-gu2 tur-tur_ li-se11-bi-lam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — HSS 10, 010. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (P213276) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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