Position in chronology
Subartu 12, 216
About this tablet
A small, badly broken ration account from Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) in northeastern Syria, written around 2400 BCE. It lists groups of workers by occupation — donkey herders, herders of young donkeys, and fullers (cloth-washers) — each followed by the barley issued to them, measured in barig and ban. Beydar's palace archive is best known for its detailed administration of equids, and this tablet is a typical scrap of that bureaucracy: the payroll of the men who looked after the animals.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ration roster: one person in the first (broken) entry, with 8 barig of grain issued. Next, a group under šu-bu-da/ir-tum, at least two men. Six herders of jennies, with 8 barig 3 ban of grain. Three herders of the young donkeys. Another entry beginning 'šu' is lost. Five fullers, with at least 3 barig of grain. The rest of the tablet is blank or too worn to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] ... 1 (unit) goods: 8 barig šu-bu₃-da / ir₃-tum: [n+]2 herdsmen of jennies (female donkeys): 6 goods: 8 barig 3 ban herdsmen of young donkeys: 3 šu [...] fullers: 5 [goods]: [n+]3 barig (The remainder of the tablet — reverse and edges — is preserved but effaced; no further signs can be read.)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
[...] x 1(asz@c) _nig2#_ 8(barig@c)# szu#-bu3-da/ir3#-tum# n 2(asz@c) _sipa eme3#_ 6(asz@c)# _nig2_ 8(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) _sipa ansze tur_ 3(asz@c) szu [...] _aslag4#_ 5(asz@c) [_nig2_] n 3(barig@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 12, 216. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Der-ez-Zor, Syria (P274192) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-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.
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.