MAD 5, 112

About this tablet

A mathematical school exercise from the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, now in the Ashmolean Museum. A scribe named Ur-Ištaran was given two side-lengths of an impossibly huge field — one side over 200,000 ninda long — and had to multiply them out into the full ladder of Mesopotamian area units, down to fractions of a shekel. Texts like this show how apprentice scribes over 4,200 years ago drilled multiplication and unit conversion, the ancient equivalent of a math worksheet.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This is a student's math problem, worked and signed. Given a plot measuring 216,240 ninda and 4 cubits on one dimension and 3,692 ninda and 1 cubit on the other, the scribe Ur-Ištaran computed the area. His answer, expressed in the full chain of surface measures — 7 šarkid, 4 šar'ugal, 7 šar₂, 1 bur'u, 7 bur₃, 1 eše₃, 3½ iku of field, plus 10 sar and 16⅔ shekels — 'was found,' i.e., this is the computed result. The numbers are deliberately enormous: the point was the arithmetic, not a real field.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 1 šargal 4 geš₂ (= 216,240) ninda 4 cubits — the 'seed' made equal (one side); 2. 1 šar₂ 1 geš₂ 32 (= 3,692) ninda 1 cubit — the 'seed' made equal (the other side); 3. (By) Ur-Ištaran. 4. 7 šarkid 4 šar'ugal 7 šar₂ 1 bur'u 7 bur₃ 1 eše₃ 3 ½ iku of field (area), (plus) 10 sar 16 ⅔ gin₂, 5. was found (= computed).

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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(szargal) 4(gesz2) ninda 4(disz) kusz3 numun sa2
1(szar2) 1(gesz2) 3(u) 2(disz) ninda 1(disz) kusz3 numun sa2
ur-isztaran
7(szarkid) 4(szar'ugal) 7(szar2) 1(bur'u) 7(bur3) 1(esze3) 3(iku) 1/2(iku) GAN2 1(u) sar 1(u) 6(disz) gin2 2/3(disz)
ba-pa3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC) ?) — MAD 5, 112. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215434) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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~1800 BCE

Plimpton 322

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