Position in chronology
MAD 5, 105
About this tablet
A small Old Akkadian administrative record (c. 2300 BCE) tallying parcels of farmland held or handed over by four named men, summed up under the farmer Šeš-šeš. The final Akkadian phrase, 'for the price of an ox', shows the land being reckoned against the value of livestock — a glimpse of how land and animals were exchanged in an economy without coined money. The internal arithmetic checks out exactly: the four parcels add up to the stated total of 1 bur 2 eše 1¾ iku (about 11.4 hectares).
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a land account. Lu-nimgir holds 5 iku of field (roughly 1.8 hectares), Sidu 4 iku, Lugal-entarsu 2 eše and 1 iku (about 4.7 hectares), and Ur-Enki 1 eše plus 3¾ iku (about 3.5 hectares). All together that comes to 1 bur, 2 eše, and 1¾ iku of farmland — around 11.4 hectares — belonging to or managed by Šeš-šeš, the farmer. The whole lot is being set against the purchase price of an ox.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 iku of field — Lu-nimgir; 4 iku — Sidu; 2 eše 1 iku of field — Lugal-entarsu; 1 eše 3½ ¼ iku — Ur-Enki. Total: 1 bur 2 eše 1½ ¼ iku of field, (of) Šeš-šeš, the farmer, for the price of an ox.
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
5(iku@c) _GAN2_ lu2-nimgir 4(iku) si-du 2(esze3@c) 1(iku@c) _GAN2_ lugal-en3-tar-su3 1(esze3@c) 3(iku@c) 1/2(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) ur-en-ki _szu-nigin2_ 1(bur3@c) 2(esze3@c) 1(iku@c) 1/2(iku@c) 1/4(iku@c) _GAN2_ szesz-szesz _engar_ a-na _sa10 gu4_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 105. 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 (P215427) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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