Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 090
About this tablet
An oil-allocation record from Adab (modern Bismaya in southern Iraq), written during the Akkadian period, roughly 2350–2150 BCE. It tracks quantities of oil — measured in storage jars and in sila (roughly one-litre units) — disbursed to a temple administrator serving the local deity Ašgi and to several named individuals. A commissioner (maškim) is noted as the responsible overseer, and a final entry records a delivery. This is the routine paperwork of a Mesopotamian temple economy: precise, impersonal, and illuminating about how institutions managed everyday commodities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One full jar of oil, short by two sila, went to the temple administrator of the god Ašgi. A separate allotment of fifteen sila of oil was distributed to Ur-er[...], with Ur-Su listed as the supervising commissioner for that transaction. One additional jar was assigned to Ur-Ur, and Ga-eš₈ and A-rum₂-[...] are recorded as having made a delivery. The opening entry — one GUR of something, linked to A-aš₂-[...] — is too damaged to read in full.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 GUR [...] A-aš₂-[...] 1 jar, minus 2 sila, of oil — the sanga-priest of Ašgi; 15 sila of oil for Ur-er[...]: (the oil) was distributed. Ur-Su: his commissioner. 1 jar — Ur-Ur; Ga-eš₈, A-rum₂-[x]: was delivered.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) [...] a-asz2-[x x] 1(asz@c) dug la2 2(disz@t) sila3 i3 sanga asz8-gi4 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) i3# sila3# ur-erx(KISZ)-ra i3-ra2-ra2 ur-su maszkim-bi 1(asz@c) dug ur-ur ga:esz8 a-rum2-x mu-de6
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 090. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 188 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472390). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.