Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 043
About this tablet
An Old Akkadian administrative disbursement tablet from Adab, a city in southern Iraq, dating to approximately 2350–2150 BCE — the era of the Akkadian Empire. It records the distribution of dates and wicker carrying-baskets to at least four named or titled recipients, one of whom received a very large consignment sent on to Akkad, the imperial capital. Among the recipients are a launderer, a lamentation-singer who also worked towing river boats, a man named Puzur-Ilaba, and an official named Zu-zu described as commissioner over barley. This is the routine paperwork of provincial administration: a clerk at Adab tracking the outflow of agricultural produce from a local storehouse.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A large first delivery — twelve gur of dates and 120 wicker baskets — was paid out as an interest installment to the local launderer and sent along to Akkad. The next entry, recording a certain number of dates and baskets for a man named Puzur-Ilaba, is partly broken. Then the record is clearer: the lamentation-singer who worked the tow-boats received two barig and three ban of dates plus five baskets; and one barig of dates with two more baskets went to Zu-zu, the grain commissioner. The final lines are slightly damaged but the name and title survive.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine12 gur of dates, 120 gur-dub baskets — delivered; as interest [given] to the launderer, to Akkad, was given to him. [n] dates, [n gur-dub baskets] — delivered; Puzur-Ilaba. 2 barig 3 ban2 of dates, 5 gur-dub baskets — delivered; the lamentation-singer, boat-puller. 1 barig of dates, 2 gur-dub baskets — deliv[ered]; Zu-zu, the commissioner, [for] barley.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(u@c) 2(asz@c) zu2#-[lum] gur# 2(gesz2@c) gurdub ab-szum2 masz lu2 azlag2#-ra a#-ga#-de3-se3 e-na-szum2 [n zu2]-lum [n gurdub] ab-szum2 puzur4#-il3-a-ba4 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) zu2-lum 5(asz@c) gurdub ab-szum2 gala ma2-gid2 1(barig@c) zu2-lum 2(asz@c) gurdub ab-[szum2] zu-zu maszkim sze#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 043. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 270 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/artifacts, P472343). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.