Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 018
About this tablet
A Sumerian letter from the Akkadian period, addressed to an official called 'my lord.' The opening lines follow the standard Sumerian letter formula before turning to what appears to be a military or administrative report: troops have been organized, some number died on a specific day (possibly by mace-blow), and a group of fifteen are accounted for. The latter half of the tablet is badly broken, but passing references to the palace and a man of no means suggest the letter is escalating some practical concern to a superior. The tablet is too fragmentary to reconstruct fully, but it belongs to the well-documented Akkadian-period tradition of Sumerian administrative correspondence.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a letter. The sender's name is mostly lost, but it opens with the standard formula: '[Someone] writes — please deliver this message to my lord: The troops have been mustered and put in order. On the fourth day, some died — apparently by mace-blow, though that reading is uncertain. Fifteen troops were [the verb is broken and lost]. The next several lines are too damaged to read. Something is said about the palace. As for the person who has no means — may he bring it.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...]-gu [...]: [Thus] speak: To my lord, say: 'The troops have been set in order. On day 4, [they] perished — mace(?). 15 troops were [...] [...]-na-ga [...] [...] gathered [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] year / name (?) [...] in the palace. A person who has nothing [...] may he bring it.'
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. 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
[...]-gu [x] [na]-be2#-a lugal#-mu u3#-na-du11 surx(ERIM)#-e si a-ba-sa2 u4# 4(disz)-am6 usz szita4#? surx(ERIM)# 1(u)# 5(disz@t) ba-[x] x-na-ga#? [x] [x]-ur4#-ur4-[x] x x x [x] x mu ma#? [x] e2#?-gal-la lu2# nu-tuku [x] he2-nab#-e
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 018. 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: CL 265 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472318). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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