Position in chronology
MAD 5, 091
About this tablet
A small Old Akkadian (Sargonic-period, c. 2300 BCE) tablet, possibly from the site of Umm al-Jir in central Mesopotamia, now in the Ashmolean Museum. It lists personal names — one Sumerian (Lugal-niglulua), others Semitic — together with what look like place references, and then launches into the standard Akkadian letter-opening 'Thus says Amur-ilum to...'. It appears to be a letter or a memorandum connected with one, a glimpse of everyday correspondence from the empire of the kings of Akkad, when Akkadian first became a written language of administration and mail.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with two names, Nunu and Lugal-niglulua, and then seems to mention 'his tablet' in connection with a place called Akuzum; a following line is too damaged to read, and another location, Lakuri, is named. Two more obscure words or names follow — perhaps 'Lamanam' and 'Kubigi'. Then comes the formula every Akkadian letter begins with: 'This is what Amur-ilum says, to...' — and there the readable text, as supplied, stops before naming the addressee or giving the message itself.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. Nunu, 2. Lugal-niglulua: 3. his tablet (ṭuppaśu?) 4. in Akuzum[...] 5. ... reed(?) ... (illegible sign) 6. in Lakuri. 7. Lamanam(?) / the bad one(?) 8. Kubigi(?) 9. Thus (says) 10. Amur-ilum 11. to [......]
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
nu-nu lugal-nig2-lu-lu-a du-ub-ha-su4# in a-ku-zum[] gi#? zu x in la-ku-ri2 la-ma-na-am ku-bi2-gi en-ma a#-mur-dingir a#-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 091. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215414) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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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.