Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 228
About this tablet
This is a short economic memorandum from Adab (modern Bismaya) dating to the Old Akkadian period, roughly the 23rd–22nd century BCE. It records the weighing-out of two named commodities — quantified precisely in minas and shekels — to a person called AxKU3-pa'e, who is associated with 'the king,' a royal office or dependency common in Old Akkadian administrative archives. Tablets like this were the everyday bookkeeping of a palace or temple household, tracking who received what, when, and why, dated by the local month name.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a payout record: 3 and a half minas of one commodity (called here 'numun-kalga,' something 'strong' or hardened — possibly a type of metal) and a bit over 6 minas and 6 shekels of a second commodity ('muš') were weighed out and handed over to a man named Ax-kù-pa'e, who is tied in some way to the king or royal household. The transaction is dated to the month known as 'ab-e-zi-ga.' It reads like a routine receipt or disbursement note from an ancient accounting office — precise about weights and names, but silent on the broader reason for the payment.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 1/2 minas of 'numun-kalga' (a strong/hardened seed-commodity, possibly a metal type); 6[+x] minas, 6 shekels of 'muš' (another commodity, possibly a metal or material); (for) Ax-kù-pa'e, the king (or: a royal official/dependent), was weighed out for him. Month: 'ab-e-zi-ga' (the going-forth of the ab).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
3(asz@c) 1/2(asz@c) ma#-na# numun kal-ga# 6(asz@c) [n] ma-na 6(disz) gin2 musz3 |AxKU3|-pa-e3 lugal-a e-na-la2 iti ab-e3-zi-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 228. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CL 099 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472528). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (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.