CUSAS 20, 037

About this tablet

This is a short business letter from the town of Adab in southern Iraq, written in Sumerian in the Old Akkadian period around 2300 BCE. It comes from a man named Adda and is addressed to Ur-Lulu. It begins with a small list of goods: flax, garlic, peas and cumin, some of them already in stock and some sent on. It ends with a brief request about a man named Lu-gid. Letters this early are rare. Here the goods list comes before the usual 'Say to X: Y says' greeting, which gives a glimpse of how administrators in the time of Sargon's dynasty managed small household supplies.

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

Written in modern English

Seven minas of flax and two baskets of garlic are here in stock. Adda has sent Ur-Lulu three measures of small peas and one measure of cumin. Then the letter proper: 'To Ur-Lulu, from Adda: please send Lu-gid back.'

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Obverse(?) 1. 7 minas of flax (fibre), 2. 2 gurdub-baskets of SUMASZ@g garlic — 3. (these) are on hand. 4. 3 ban of small peas(?), 5. 1 ban of cumin: 6. to Ur-Lulu 7. Adda 8. has sent (them). 9. To Ur-Lulu 10. speak: 11. Adda 12. says: 13. "Lu-gid 14. let him send back!"

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

7(asz@c) gu ma-na
2(asz@c) gurdub2 SUMASZ@g szum2
i3-gal2
3(ban2@c) gu2-gu2 tur-tur
1(ban2@c) gamun
ur-lu-lu-ra
ad-da
szu i3-na-us2
ur-lu-lu-ra
u3-na-du11
ad-da
na-be2-a
lu2-gid2
ha-mu-gi4

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — CUSAS 20, 037. 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: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P273792) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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