Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 026
About this tablet
A disbursement record from Adab in southern Mesopotamia, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2350–2150 BCE). It tallies goods — wool, sesame oil, lard, and bitumen — allocated as a household ration under a steward named Al-la, and records a further measure of sesame oil given by Puzur-Enlil ('Protected by Enlil'), the official in charge of barley transactions. The closing formula 'oil: disbursed' and a month-date are entirely standard for this genre of estate accounting tablet, showing how tightly Mesopotamian administrators tracked even small quantities of everyday commodities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The estate distributed ten mana of wool, a sila each of sesame oil and lard, and a unit of bitumen as the household ration — all under the care of Al-la, the estate steward. Puzur-Enlil, the officer responsible for barley, then gave him an additional sila of sesame oil. The record closes with the standard sign-off: 'Oil — disbursed.' Dated to the month of mu-tir.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine10 mana of wool, 1 sila of sesame oil, 1 sila of lard, 1 [unit of] bitumen — house ration: Al-la, the steward of the household. 1 sila of sesame oil: Puzur-Enlil, the barley commissioner, gave [it] to him. Oil: disbursed. Month: mu-tir.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(u@c) siki ma-[na] 1(asz@c) i3-gesz sila3 1(asz@c) i3-szah2 sila3 1(asz@c) esir5 e2-ba al-la lu2 szabra e2 1(asz@c) i3-gesz sila3 puzur4-en-lil2 maszkim sze e-ne-szum2 i3 zi-ga-am3 iti mu-tir
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 026. 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 165 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472326). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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Related sources
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