Position in chronology
MAD 5, 053
About this tablet
A personnel roster from Kish in the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE), the age of the first Mesopotamian empire. A scribe counts men one by one — each entry is simply '1' followed by a name — and groups them under the overseers or households responsible for them, such as 'those of Ida-Suen.' Lists like this are how the state tracked its labor force: workers, dependents, or conscripts assigned to supervisors. The tablet is broken at the edges, so several names and at least one supervisor's identity are lost.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a head-count of men, filed by supervisor. First group: Tirum (listed under Tirum), Utu-lidin, Pusu-du, Dingir-azu, and Ili-dan — five men answering to Ida-Suen. Second group: Warassuni, a man whose name began with 'Ur-', and one Puzur-something — these belonged to a household whose owner's name is broken off. A final entry, perhaps 'Huhu-...', is too damaged to read, and the edges of the tablet have carried away a few more signs.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[1 (man):] Tirum, of Tirum; [1 (man):] Utu-lidin; [1 (man):] Pusu-du; [1 (man):] Dingir-azu; 1 (man): Ili-dan — those of Ida-Suen. 1 (man): Warassu[ni]; 1 (man): Ur-[...]; 1 (man): Puzur-[...] — those of the house(?) [of ...]. [1 (man):] Hu-hu-[...]
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[1(asz@c)] ti-ru#-um sza# ti-ru-um [1(asz@c)] utu-li-din [1(asz@c)] pu3-su-du10 [1(asz@c)] dingir-a-zu 1(asz@c) i3-li2-dan szu-ut i-da-suen 1(asz@c) ARAD2-su2#-[ni] 1(asz@c) ur-[...] 1(asz@c) puzur4-[...] szu#-ut _e2#?_ [...] [1(asz@c)] hu#?-hu#?-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 053. 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 (P215377) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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