Position in chronology
MAD 5, 092
About this tablet
A small ration or disbursement list from the Old Akkadian period (ca. 2350–2200 BCE), probably from Umm al-Jir in Babylonia. A scribe records six men, each receiving an identical measure of three ban — roughly 30 liters — of a staple, almost certainly grain, though the commodity itself is not named on the surviving lines. Such flat, equal allotments are the everyday bookkeeping of a household or institution feeding its workers, and the mix of Akkadian names (Puzur-suni, Ilum-bani, Šu-Mama) reflects the Semitic-speaking population of the Akkadian empire's heartland.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Six people each get the same allowance of three ban — about 30 liters apiece, presumably of barley: Pusu-su, Puzur-suni, Ilum-bani, Malasu, Šu-Mama, and a man named Puzur-something, whose full name is broken off the tablet. That is the whole surviving text: a short, evenly divided distribution list, with no totals, date, or official preserved.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 ban: Pusu-su 2. 3 ban: Puzur-suni 3. 3 ban: Ilum-bani 4. 3 ban: Malasu(?) 5. 3 ban: Šu-Ma[ma] 6. 3 ban: Puzur-[...]
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
3(ban2@c) pu3-su-su 3(ban2@c) puzur4-su-ni 3(ban2@c) dingir-ba-ni 3(ban2@c) ma-la-su#? 3(ban2@c) szu-ma-[ma] 3(ban2@c) puzur4#-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 092. 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 (P215415) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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