Position in chronology
MAD 5, 087
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet from the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2350–2200 BCE), probably from the site of Umm al-Jir (ancient name uncertain) in northern Babylonia, now in the Ashmolean Museum. It records deliveries of barley measured in the standard large gur unit, credited to three named men — Kalbum, Burzum, and Inimmum — one of them at a fortified settlement called 'the tower.' It is the ordinary paperwork of grain collection under the Akkadian empire: hundreds of such receipts kept the state's food economy running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A barley receipt. An unknown quantity of barley (the number is broken away), measured in the standard gur, came in at the tower settlement from Kalbum. Burzum delivered 75 gur of barley, and Inimmum delivered 150 gur, both in the same standard measure. The final line stamps the document as a delivery record — grain received and booked by the administration.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [...(number lost)...] barley (in the) sag-gal₂ (gur measure), 2. in Dimti ("the tower"): 3. Kalbum. 4. 75 (gur) barley (in the) sag-gal₂ measure: 5. Burzum. 6. 150 (gur) barley (in the) sag-gal₂ measure: 7. Inimmum. 8. Delivery.
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
[...] _sze sag-gal2_ in# di3-im-ti kal2-bum 1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) _sze sag-gal2_ bur-zum 2(gesz2@c) 3(u@c) _sze sag-gal2_ inim-mu-um _mu-kux(DU)#_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 087. 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 (P215410) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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