Position in chronology
MAD 5, 080
About this tablet
A small barley account from the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, probably from the site now called Umm al-Jir in central Iraq. It lists deliveries of first-quality barley by named individuals — a scribe named Aḫī-ṭāb, then Warad-Ea, Bubu, and a fourth man whose name is partly broken — each entry closed by the Akkadian verb 'he brought'. It is the kind of routine grain bookkeeping on which the world's first territorial empire ran: ordinary men moving measured sacks of barley, and a clerk writing it down.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A grain ledger: Aḫī-ṭāb the scribe is down for 1 gur and 2 barig (roughly 420 liters) of top-grade barley. Warad-Ea delivered 5 gur (about 1,500 liters) of the same. Bubu delivered about 3 gur, though the figure is partly damaged, and a fourth man — his name broken, perhaps Ītum-ilum — delivered a quantity now lost. Each delivery is of first-quality barley, and the record notes simply that each man 'brought' his load in.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 gur 2 barig first-quality barley: 2. Aḫī-ṭāb, 3. the scribe. 4. 5 gur first-quality barley 5. Warad-Ea 6. brought (here). 7. 3(?) gur [+ ...] first-quality barley 8. Bubu 9. brought (here). 10. [... gur] first-quality barley 11. [Ī]tum-ilum(?) 12. brought (here).
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
1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) _sze sag_ a-hi-t,ab6 _dub-sar_ 5(asz@c) _sze sag_ ARAD2-e2-a ub-lam 3(asz@c)#? [...] _sze sag_ bu3#-bu3# ub#-lam# [...] _sze sag_ [i3?]-tum#-i3-lum ub-lam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 080. 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 (P215403) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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Related sources
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