Position in chronology
Lippmann Coll 325
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet recording a tally of cattle — oxen and cows — sorted by age category (yearlings and two-year-olds), ending in a summary total and the place-name Šuruppak (modern Fara, in southern Iraq). Texts like this were routine bookkeeping, likely tracking herd composition for a temple or estate; Šuruppak is one of the most important early administrative centers of ancient Sumer, though this particular tablet is catalogued to the Akkadian period.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a cattle count. It lists some number of oxen and cows, then a group of mother cows, then breaks the herd down by age: cows and an ox that are two years old, three cows and two oxen that are one year old. The scribe totals the cows at 24. The record is filed under the name Šuruppak, the town where the herd (or the account of it) was kept.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] oxen (and) cows [n] mother cows [n cows], 2 years old 1(asz) [... ox], 2 years old 3(asz) cows, 1 year old 2(asz) oxen, 1 year old Total: 2(u) 4(asz) [i.e. 24] cows Šuruppak
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
[n] gu4#-ab2 [n] ab2#-ama [n ab2] mu 2(disz@t) 1(asz@c) [n gu4] mu 2(disz@t) 3(asz@c) ab2# mu 1(disz@t) 2(asz@c) gu4 mu 1(disz@t) szunigin 2(u@c)# 4(asz@c)# ab2 szuruppak
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — Lippmann Coll 325. 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 208 (Carl L. Lippmann Collection, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain) — from uncertain (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P472625). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.