Position in chronology
MAD 5, 114
About this tablet
A small administrative record from Kish in the Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300 BCE: a roster of oxen assigned to, or received from, named individuals. The names — Ali-aḫu, Beli-dan, Šaṭpum, Ilulu — are Akkadian, reflecting the Semitic-speaking population of northern Babylonia under the dynasty of Sargon. It is a snapshot of everyday livestock bookkeeping: who held how many plow or draft animals in an institutional herd.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a cattle ledger, entry by entry: Namu has an unknown number of oxen (the figure is broken), Ali-aḫu has three oxen, Kititi one ox, Beli-dan one ox; Šaṭpum, a man whose name ends in -takkal, and Ilulu each held further oxen, but the numbers before their names are lost. The beginning and end of the list are broken away, so we cannot say how many men or animals the full account covered, or whether a total followed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [...] oxen(?) — Namu(?) 2. 3(?) oxen — Ali-aḫu 3. 1 ox — Kititi(?) 4. 1 ox — Beli-dan 5. [n oxen] — Šaṭpum 6. [n oxen — ...]-takkal 7. [n oxen] — Ilulu 8. [...] (rest broken)
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
[...] gu4# na#?-mu 3(asz@c)? gu4 a-li-a-hu 1(asz@c) gu4 ki#?-ti-ti 1(asz@c) gu4 be-li2-dan [n gu4] sza#-at,-pum [n gu4 ...]-ta2#-kal2 [n gu4] i3#-lu-lu [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 114. 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 (P212424) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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