Position in chronology
OIP 092, 0056
About this tablet
A small administrative memorandum from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the vast filing system of the Achaemenid Persian court at Persepolis. Written in Elamite around 500 BCE — the 22nd year points to the reign of Darius I — it records a routine transfer of sesame: sixty measures issued from the stock of an official named Saktiti and received by a man called Nappupu. Thousands of such receipts survive, and together they let historians reconstruct the day-to-day food economy of the Persian Empire's ceremonial heart.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: 60 measures of sesame, drawn from the supply account of Saktiti. The middle line, partly obscure, seems to note that the delivery men handled or carried the consignment. Nappupu took receipt of the sesame. Filed in year 22 of the king — that is, around 500 BCE under Darius I. The everyday paperwork of a royal storehouse: who issued the goods, who received them, and when.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 60 (measures of) sesame, supplied by (kurmin) Saktiti; the delivery-men(?) ... — he(?) carried/held it; Nappupu received (it). Year 22.
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(szu) _sze-gesz-i3-mesz_ kur-min2 sa!-ak-ti-ti-na ul-li-pi-ti-na-mar-ri u2-pir2 ku-ut-ik-ka4 na-ap-pu-pu du-isz-da be-ul 2(u) 2(disz)-um-me-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — OIP 092, 0056. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; 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, P382742). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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