Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 174
About this tablet
An administrative wool-distribution record from the palace at Adab, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2350–2150 BCE). Two individuals, Adda and Ursu, are each linked to a specific quantity of raw wool — 39 and 23 minas respectively — tracked under palace authority. An official named Ašdarra then received palace wool that had been formally entered into store and disbursed it to a weaver. The tablet is a routine fragment of the closely managed textile economy that was central to Mesopotamian palace life, where every handful of fiber passed through official hands and left a written trace.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Adda: 39 minas of wool. Ursu: 23 minas of wool. This is palace wool that has been formally received into stock. For the weaver — Ašdarra gave it to him.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine39 minas of wool — Adda 23 minas of wool — Ursu Wool of the palace [which] has been brought in: for the weaver — Ašdarra gave to him
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(u) la2 1(disz@t) siki ma-na ad-da 2(u) 3(disz) siki ma:na ur-su siki e2-gal-la kux(KWU636)-ra2-am3 usz#-bar-sze3 asz-dar-ra e-na-szum2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 174. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 013 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472474). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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