Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 204
About this tablet
This is a textile-production account from the Sargonic-era administration at Adab, one of many surviving records that tracked the output of state-run weaving workshops. It lists different named categories of woven garments (a fine 'nig-lam' cloth and two other named types) by quantity and quality grade, credits some to specific weavers, and closes with a monthly grand total. Tablets like this were the bookkeeping backbone of an early Mesopotamian textile industry — one of the largest state-organized crafts of its time, employing hundreds of workers, mostly women, in institutional workshops.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This month's cloth tally: 19 fine garments and 20 plain (šagadu and šagedab) garments came in as second-quality stock. Separately, the weaving teams turned in 57 fine garments, an unknown further batch of šagadu-cloth, 11 garments of another type, and some quantity of naspāru-cloth. Another 57 šagadu-garments were set aside as private or personal stock. All told, 439 garments were recorded between the two main categories this month, credited to the weavers for the third month of the year.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine19 fine-grade (nig₂-lam₂) garments, second quality (uš₂); 10 šagadu-garments, second quality; 10 šagedab-garments, second quality; 57 fine-grade (nig₂-lam₂) garments, [from] the weavers; [n] šagadu-garments, [from the] weav[ers]; 11 [...]-garments; [n] na[spāru?]-garments; 57 šagadu-garments, personal allotment/private stock (nig₂-su-a); Total: 439 garments, of both (kinds). Weavers — 3rd month.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(u)# la2 1(disz@t) tug2 nig2-lam2 us2 1(u) tug2 sza3-ga-du3 us2 1(u) tug2 sza3-ge-dab6 us2 5(u) 7(disz) tug2 nig2#-lam2 usz-bar [n] tug2 [sza3]-ga#-du3 usz#-[bar] 1(u) 1(disz) tug2-[...] [n] tug2 na-[as-pa2-ru?] [n?] 1(gesz2@c) la2 3(disz@t) tug2 sza3-ga#-du3 nig2-su-a szunigin 7(gesz2@c) 2(u@c) la2 1(disz@t) tug2 min-bi usz-bar iti 3(disz)-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 204. 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 277 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472504). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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