Position in chronology
OIP 092, 0406
About this tablet
A small Elamite-language ration receipt from the Persepolis Fortification archive — the enormous cache of clay tablets that documented the food economy of Darius I's imperial heartland in Fārs. It records 25 measures of flour drawn from the stores of an official named Irtuppiyana and handed over to a man called Pirmayabada, in connection with work performed for the royal treasury, dated to the second month (Turmar) of Darius I's 22nd regnal year, about 500 BCE. Thousands of such receipts survived because they were baked in the fire that destroyed Persepolis in 330 BCE; together they show, in astonishing detail, how the Persian Empire fed its workers, travellers and officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Twenty-five measures of flour were issued from Irtuppiyana's stores and collected by Pirmayabada. The middle line, which explains the reason for the issue, is only partly intelligible: it refers to work being carried out and to an allocation made at the treasury. The receipt is dated to the month of Turmar in the twenty-second year of the king's reign — roughly spring 500 BCE, under Darius I.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine25 BAR-measures of flour, from the supply (kurmin) of Irtuppiyana, Pirmayabada received. (As?) kurakraš he was performing [the work] of ...-unair; at the treasury (kapnuški) it was ...(irše-na), being apportioned (šaramanna). Month: Turmar. Year 22 (of the king).
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
2(u) 5(disz) _bar zi3-da#-mesz_ kur#-min2# ir#-tup#-pi-ia#-na pir2#?-ma#?-ia!-ba#-da du-isz-da ku-ra-ka4-rasz2 hu-ud-da-man-ra -u2-na-ir-na ka4-ap-nu-isz-ki-ma ir-sze-na sza2-ra-man-na! _iti-mesz_ tu-ir-ma-ir-na be-ul 2(u) 2(disz)-um-me-man-na
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Achaemenid (547-331 BC)) — OIP 092, 0406. 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, P383092). 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.