Position in chronology
MAD 5, 113
About this tablet
An Old Akkadian administrative account, roughly 2300–2200 BCE, now in the Ashmolean Museum. It records quantities of milled products — coarse barley flour, two grades of fine flour, beer-bread for brewing, and groats — issued 'from' a woman named Geme-TAR, with further amounts credited to a man named Dada and received by 'the city'. It is a small window into the everyday grain economy of the Akkadian empire: milled goods moving between named individuals and an institution, carefully measured down to the sila (about a liter).
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An inventory of milled grain products: 3 gur, 2 barig and 3 ban of coarse barley flour measured by the standard gur, 4 ban and 5 sila of fine flour, 3 ban and 5 sila of top-quality flour, 1 ban of beer-bread for brewing, and 4 ban of barley groats — all drawn from the account of Geme-TAR. Further amounts of top-quality and fine flour (the quantities are broken away) are booked to Dada. The city received the goods. In short: a receipt for flour, brewing supplies and groats passing from two individuals' accounts into institutional hands.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 gur, 2 barig, 3 ban of dabin-flour (barley flour), (in the) standard gur; 2. 4 ban, 5 sila of gu-flour (fine flour); 3. 3 ban, 5 sila of sig-flour (fine-quality flour); 4. 1 ban of beer-bread (bappir); 5. 4 ban of arzana-groats; 6. from Geme-TAR. 7. [...] sig-flour (fine-quality flour), 8. [...] gu-flour (fine flour): 9. (that) of Dada. 10. The city 11. received (it).
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(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) _dabin gur si-sa2_ 4(ban2@c) 5(asz@c) _sila3 zi3-gu_ 3(ban2@c) 5(asz@c) _sila3 zi3 sig15_ 1(ban2@c) _bappir_ 4(ban2@c) _ar-za-na_ _ki_ geme2-TAR [...] _zi3 sig15_ [...] _zi3-gu_ szu da-da iri im-hur#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 113. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P215435) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A witness to the extensive livestock administration of the Ur III state. Numerous surviving accounts let historians study deliveries, redistribution and official responsibility in unusual detail.