MAD 1, 286

About this tablet

An Old Akkadian administrative tablet from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in Iraq), roughly 2300 BCE, recording quantities of aromatic substances — cedar resin or wood, juniper, and other perfumed plant products. Such aromatics were valuable commodities used for incense, perfumed oils, ritual fumigation, and medicine. The tablet is a bare stock or disbursement list, a glimpse into the luxury-goods trade that moved fragrant resins from the mountains into Mesopotamian storehouses.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This is a short inventory of fragrant goods: forty minas (about twenty kilograms) of aromatic cedar wood, twenty-five units of sumelum aromatic, twenty-five of suballulum — probably a juniper product — an amount, now illegible, of ayazum aromatic, and ten units of ballukum aromatic. Just the quantities and the commodities, with no names or dates preserved: a warehouse tally of perfume ingredients.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 40 minas of aromatic cedar wood, 2. 25 (units) of sumelum-aromatic, 3. 25 (units) of suballulum-aromatic (juniper?), 4. x (units) of ayazum-aromatic, 5. 10 (units) of ballukum-aromatic.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

4(u@c) ma-na gesz szim erin
2(u@c) 5(asz@c) szim su-me-lum
2(u@c) 5(asz@c) szim su#-ba-lu-lum
x szim a-a2-zum
1(u@c) szim ba-lu#-kum

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 1, 286. 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: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P215115) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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