Position in chronology
MAD 5, 028
About this tablet
This is a short personnel list from Kish in central Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian period, around the 23rd century BCE. It names four messengers or envoys one by one. Each is listed with the foreman (ugula) responsible for him, and the tablet ends with a total and a note on the purpose or destination of the group. Records like this show how the Sargonic administration tracked the people it sent out on official errands, even though the last entry and part of the purpose note can no longer be understood.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four messengers are on this list, each with his supervisor. Dingir-azu reports to Ili-ili, Ili-tabba reports to Lu-uš-udu, and Šuma-zaba (the name is partly lost) reports to a foreman whose name is broken off. The fourth messenger and his foreman are lost entirely. The four men are assigned "for bar", and what that purpose or destination means is unclear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (man): Dingir-azu, foreman: Ili-ili. 1 (man): Ili-tabba, foreman: Lu-uš-[udu]. 1 (man): Šuma-[zaba?], [foreman: ......]. [1 (man): ......], [foreman: ......]. Total: 4 messengers, for bar.
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz@c) dingir-a-zu _ugula_ i-li2-li2 1(asz@c) i3-li2-tab-ba# _ugula_ lu2-usz2-[udu] 1(asz@c) szu-ma-[za-ba] [_ugula_ ...] [1(asz@c) ...] [_ugula_ ...] _szu-nigin2_ 4(asz@c) _lu2 kin-gi4-a_ a-na bar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 028. 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: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215353) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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