Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 311
About this tablet
This is a short administrative record from Adab (modern Bismaya) in southern Iraq, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2100 BCE). It documents two disbursements — quantities of wool, and in the second case silver as well — weighed out to named individuals, closing with the month name in which the transaction took place. Texts like this were the everyday bookkeeping of a temple or palace household, tracking the movement of raw wool and precious metal through named officials or recipients.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record notes that 11 talents and 4 mina of wool were weighed out and handed over to a man named Baddine, in connection with Ga-eše, at (or belonging to) a storehouse called E'urra. A second entry records a further amount of wool along with some silver — the exact quantities are lost — again weighed out, this time involving Baddine together with a second man, Ursu-pasikil. The transaction is dated to the month called Gaudu'ur, the sheep-shearing month, fitting for a wool disbursement.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine11 talents, 4 mina of wool — Baddine, Ga-eše, (at/of) E’urra (the storehouse): it was weighed out to him. [n] talents of wool, [n] shekels of silver — Baddine, Ursu-pasikil: it was weighed out to him. Month: Gaudu’ur.
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) 1(asz@c) siki gu2 4(disz) ma-na bad3-[di]-ne# ga:esz8-e# e2#-ur2-ra# e#-na#-la2# [n] siki# gu2 n ku3# gin2# bad3#-di#-ne# ur#-su3#-pa-sikil# e#-na#-la2# iti# ga2#-udu#-ur4#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 311. 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 234 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from Adab (mod. Bismaya) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472611). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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