Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 294
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from Adab (ancient Bismaya), dating to the Sargonic (Akkadian) period, is an administrative roster recording three craftsmen who had fled their work assignments, each listed under the overseer responsible for him. Such 'fugitive worker' lists were routine bureaucratic documents in the great labor-mobilizing institutions of third-millennium Mesopotamia, where skilled artisans (geš-kin-ti workers, likely carpenters or general craftsmen) were organized into gangs under named foremen and their absences carefully tracked. It is a small but vivid window into forced or corvée-style labor administration — and into the fact that workers sometimes simply walked away.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short administrative note listing three craftsmen who ran away from their work gangs. Amar-Šuba-be2 was under the overseer Dada; Amar-Ašnan was under the overseer Kiku; and Ur-Ištaran was under the overseer (or foreman) Bur-gul. The record totals three craftsmen and states plainly: these men are fugitives — they have absconded from their assigned labor.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (worker): Amar-Šuba-be2, overseer: Dada. 1 (worker): Amar-Ašnan, overseer: Kiku. 1 (worker): Ur-Ištaran, overseer: Bur-gul. Total: 3, craftsmen (geškinti-workers) — they are fugitive men.
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(asz@c) amar-szubax(|MUSZ3xZA|)#-be2 ugula da-da 1(asz@c) amar-asznanx(TIR) ugula ki-ku3 1(asz@c) ur-isztaran ugula bur-gul szunigin 3(asz@c) gesz-kin#-ti lu2 zah2-a-me
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 294. 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 194 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472594). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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