Position in chronology
OIP 092, 0037
About this tablet
A small administrative memorandum in Elamite from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the vast bookkeeping system of the Persian Empire's heartland. It records the transfer of 112 measures of tarmu, a cereal grain, from a supplier named Umuštimana into the hands of named receiving officials, dated to the 23rd year of the reign — almost certainly Darius I, i.e. around 499 BCE. Thousands of such receipts tracked every ration of grain, flour, wine, and livestock moving through the imperial economy around Persepolis, giving us an unusually detailed picture of how the Achaemenid state actually ran.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: 112 measures of tarmu grain, drawn from the stock managed by Umuštimana. Išantu took delivery of the grain; it was received (at or through Kuizza/Kurdušum) by Hupannana. Filed for year 23 of the king's reign. In modern terms, this is a warehouse transfer slip — supplier, quantity, commodity, receiving officer, and fiscal year, all in three short lines.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine112 (BAR measures of) tarmu-grain, supplied by Umuštimana: Išantu received (it) (du-ša); Kuizza (of/at?) Kurdušum — Hupannana received (it). Year 23 (lit. 'of the 23rd year').
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
_1(disz) me_ 1(u) 2(disz) tar#-mu kur-min2 u2-musz-ti-ma!-na isz-an-tu4 du-sza2 ku-iz-za kur-du-szu-um hu-pan-na-na du-isz-da# be-ul 2(u) 3(disz)#?-um-me-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — OIP 092, 0037. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: OIM L— (PFAP, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA) — from Pārśa (mod. Persepolis) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P382723). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.