Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 218
About this tablet
This is a small administrative receipt from the city of Adab, likely from the Sargonic (Akkadian) period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. It records a textile official — a 'szabra,' a household or temple steward — being issued cloaks, one batch of plain wool and another of fine lambswool cloth, which were then passed on to a named individual, Lugal-amah. Tablets like this were the bookkeeping backbone of institutional economies where temples and palaces manufactured and distributed woven goods as wages, rations, or gifts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Three cloaks made from regular wool were issued to the chief steward. A further batch of cloaks, made from fine lambswool cloth, was also issued to him. These were then handed over to a man named Lugal-amah. The transaction was recorded in the month of Duku.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 bar-dul5 cloaks (of) the chief steward (szabra) — it is from wool. [n] bar-dul5 cloaks (of) the chief steward (szabra) — it is cloth from the belly(-wool) of a lamb. To Lugal-amah he gave (them). Month: Duku.
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
3(asz@c) bar-dul5 szabra# ki siki-ka-kam [n] bar-dul5 szabra tug2# sza3# sila#-ka-kam lugal-a2-mah-ra e-na-szum2 iti du6-ku3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 218. 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 170 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472518). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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