Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 256
About this tablet
This is a small Akkadian-period administrative tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya), recording materials used in leatherworking — hides, oil, bitumen, and animal fat — apparently connected to the construction or repair of a chariot ('covering for the chariot'). Such texts are the routine bookkeeping of a craft workshop or palace/temple stores, tracking inputs like donkey hide, bitumen (used as adhesive or waterproofing), and lard (used to treat or soften leather). It is a modest but concrete window into how vehicles and equipment were manufactured and accounted for nearly 4,300 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record lists supplies issued for leatherworking, probably for fitting out a chariot. It notes 10 units of a type of processed leather, oil that was applied or worked into material, several donkey hides, a quantity of bitumen allocated 'for the house' (a workshop or storeroom), one more donkey hide used as a covering for a chariot, an unspecified amount of liquid measured in sila, some pig fat (lard) also measured in sila, and roughly three more hides of an unclear type that were likewise processed. The tablet breaks off after this, and the remaining lines are too damaged to read except for one final mention of hides.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 10 (units) of ummu-leather(?) (EDIN.A) 2. [oil] was applied/processed 3. [n] hide(s) of donkey 4. [n] (measure of) bitumen — for the house 5. 1 hide of donkey 6. covering for the chariot 7. [...] sila (liquid measure) 8. [n] sila of lard/pig-fat 9. 3(?) hide(s) of ... 10. was made/processed 11. [...] (break) 12. [...] (break) 13. [n] hide(s) [...]
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
1(u@c) ummux(|EDIN.A|)# [i3 ab]-ak# [n] kusz ansze# [n] esir4 e2#-ba# 1(asz@c) kusz ansze ma-dul10# gigir2 [...] sila3 [n] i3#-szah2# sila3 3(asz@c)#? kusz# x ab#-ak# [...] [...] [n] kusz# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 256. 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 294 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472556). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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