Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 039
About this tablet
A small oil-disbursement record from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), dated to the Akkadian imperial period, roughly 2300–2100 BCE. It registers allocations of oil — sourced from or associated with the royal capital Akkad — to two named officials: Adda, an estate steward, and Dadi, identified by a now-partially-lost institutional title. Each man received one sila (roughly one liter). The tablet closes with the standard accounting formula confirming the oil was formally drawn from the account, followed by a month name. Simple as it looks, this kind of document is how a far-flung Akkadian administrative network kept track of consumable commodities flowing through local estates.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A quantity of oil — at least eight sila, possibly more — was allocated from the Agade supply. Out of this, one sila went to Adda, the estate steward, acting in his capacity as bailiff (the name of his specific assignment is lost); another sila went to Dadi, bailiff of an institution whose name is only partly preserved. Both disbursements are formally recorded as drawn and expended. The transaction is dated to the sheep-shearing month.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine8 [+ n sila of] oil [from] Agade — thereof: 1 sila of oil: Adda, estate steward, bailiff [x x]; 1 sila of oil: Dadi, bailiff of gesz-ki-[x] — oil disbursed. Month: sheep-shearing [month].
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
8(asz@c) [n i3-x] sila3# a#-ga-[de3] sza3#-bi#-ta# 1(asz@c)# i3# sila3 ad-da lu2 szabra# e2# maszkim [x x] 1(asz@c) i3 sila3 da-di3 maszkim# gesz-ki-x i3 zi#-ga#-[a] iti ga2#-udu#-ur4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 039. 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 335 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472339). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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