Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 245
About this tablet
This is a small Akkadian-period administrative tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya), recording an allocation of sheep hides — 255 in total — distributed between two named individuals, He-dabra and Ur-a. Such texts were routine bookkeeping in the temple or palace economy, tracking raw materials like hides that would later be worked by tanners or leatherworkers. The closing line appears to be a scribal notation crediting the record to a named scribe, whose name has broken off.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record tallies 255 sheep hides. Thirty of them, plus a further quantity of some other unit called 'su-si,' were handed over to a man named Ur-a, and the rest went to someone named He-dabra. The total is checked and confirmed at 255 hides. At the bottom, the tablet notes that this entry was recorded by a scribe, though his name is now broken off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[4(gešʼ×60)] 10 5 [hides of] sheep (= 255 sheep hides) He-dabra — were given (to him). 30 hides of sheep — Ur-a — 30 su-si — were given (to him). Total: 255 hides of sheep. Its designation: (by) the scribe [...].
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
[4(gesz2@c)] 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) [kusz] udu he2#-dab5-#-ra e#-na#-szum2 3(u@c) kusz udu ur-a2 3(u@c) su-si e-na-szum2 szunigin 5(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) kusz udu mu-ni dub#-[sar]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 245. 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 094 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472545). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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