Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 106
About this tablet
A small administrative delivery record from Adab (modern Bismaya, Iraq), written during the Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2150 BCE. Two named workers — Lu-Inanna, a reed-craftsman, and a man called Inim-mani-zi — delivered a combined fourteen bundles of reeds, which were credited to the account of an official named Enlil-la, described as the man responsible for the reed beds. The date is given by the Akiti festival month, one of the major ceremonial months of the Sumerian calendar. Reeds were among the most essential raw materials in ancient Mesopotamia — building material, fuel, and writing surface — and this tablet captures one small moment in the careful bureaucratic tracking of that resource.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Lu-Inanna, a reed-craftsman, delivered 8 bundles of reeds. Inim-mani-zi delivered 6 more. The combined total of 14 bundles was returned to the account of Enlil-la, the official in charge of the reed beds. The transaction was recorded in the month of the Akiti festival.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine8 bundles of reeds — Lu-Inanna, the reed-craftsman, delivered. 6 — Inim-mani-zi delivered. Total: 14 bundles of reeds, returned to hand. [Credited to] Enlil-la, the man of the reed thicket. Month: Akiti.
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) gi# gu2 lu2-inanna ad-kup4# mu-de6 6(asz@c) inim-ma-ni-zi mu-de6 szunigin 1(u@c) 4(asz@c) gi gu2 szu-a gi4-a en-lil2-la2 lu2 gesz-gi-kam iti a2-ki-ti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 106. 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 056 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472406). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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