Position in chronology
MAD 5, 095
About this tablet
A small, badly broken administrative account from the Old Akkadian period (c. 2350–2200 BCE), probably from Umm al-Jir in central Babylonia. It lists measured quantities of a commodity — almost certainly grain — issued to or received from named individuals, whose names are now mostly broken away. Tablets like this were the routine bookkeeping of Sargonic estate and household administration, and even in fragments they show the standardized barig/ban capacity system in everyday use.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from an account ledger: a column of quantities, each paired with a recipient's name. One entry of 1 barig (about 60 liters) goes to someone whose name is lost; 2 barig and 3 ban to a person whose name begins with A-; then smaller amounts — 2 ban, 4 ban, and probably another 2 ban — to people whose names are broken off; 1 barig to a man called Ulu-something; and finally 2 ban to another person whose name starts with A-. The commodity, likely barley, and most of the names are too damaged to recover.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 barig [of ...] 2. 2 barig 3 ban: A-[...]; 3. 2 ban: [...]; 4. 4 ban: [...]; 5. 2 ban(?): [...]; 6. 1 barig: Ulu-[...]; 7. 2 ban: A-[...].
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(barig@c) [...] 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) a-[...] 2(ban2@c) [...] 4(ban2@c) [...] 2(ban2@c)? [...] 1(barig@c) u2-lu-[...] 2(ban2@c) a-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 095. 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 (P215418) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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