CST 013

About this tablet

This is a short farm record from Mesopotamia in the Old Akkadian period, around the 23rd century BCE. The place it was found is not known, and it is now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It notes that a small plot of about 1½ iku (roughly half a hectare) was sown in one day's work. It names Sipazi, the plow-leader, and a man called Mezu, who delivered the report or the seed. Tiny records like this let us watch the sowing season happen field by field under the Akkadian administration.

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

Written in modern English

Sowing report: 1½ iku of land was seeded in one day's work, in the meadow-land of the field called Uru. The plow-leader in charge was Sipazi. Mezu delivered it. The tablet is dated to year 7, month 8.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 1½ iku of field: 2. seed placed (sown), 3. labour of 1 day, 4. (in) the meadow-land of the field Uru; 5. Sipazi, 6. the plow-leader. 7. Mezu 8. delivered (it). 9. Year 7, month(!) 8.

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 — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

1(iku@c) 1/2(iku@c) GAN2
numun ga2-ra
a2 1(disz@t) u4
agar4 a-sza3 uru2
sipa-zi
sag-apin-na
me-zu
mu-kux(DU)
7(disz@t) mu 8(disz@t) iti!(UD)

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CST 013. 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: John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK (P212938) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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