Position in chronology
OIP 092, 0402
About this tablet
An administrative receipt from the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the vast filing system of the Achaemenid Persian court around 500 BCE, in the reigns of Darius I and his successors. Written in Elamite, it records a modest quantity of wine — about sixteen liters — issued from the stores of a supply officer named Uštana to a man named Bagirabba, who expended it on a ritual observance called the abbamuš. Thousands of such slips survive, and together they show the empire's bureaucracy tracking every jar of wine and sack of grain moving through the heartland around Persepolis, including provisions earmarked for religious ceremonies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: sixteen quarts of wine, drawn from the stock managed by Uštana. Bagirabba took delivery and used the wine to carry out the abbamuš ceremony at Abbakannuš. Filed under the month of Miyakannaš — roughly November–December. In short: a duly recorded disbursement of ceremonial wine, signed off by the local supply administration.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine16 qa of wine, supplied by (kurmin) Uštana: Bagirabba received (it). He used it for the abbamuš (ceremony) at Abbakannuš. Month: Miyakannaš (the ninth month).
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) 6(disz) _qa gesztin-mesz_ kur-min2 u2-isz-da-na-na ba-gi-rab2-ba du-sza2 ab-ba-kan2-nu-isz# ab-ba-mu#-isz-na hu-ut-tasz-da _iti-mesz_ mi#-ia#-kan2#-na#-isz#-na#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — OIP 092, 0402. 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, P383088). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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