Position in chronology
MAD 5, 116
About this tablet
A personnel roster from the city of Kish in the Old Akkadian period (roughly the 23rd century BCE), listing seven men one by one, each identified by his father's name and in one case by a profession. Lists like this were how an administration kept track of workers, conscripts, or ration recipients. Though several names are broken away, the tablet preserves a small cross-section of ordinary men of Sargonic Kish — including one named after Zababa, the city's own warrior god.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a head-count list, one man per line: Dingir-su-kal, son of Šu-ilīsu the canal inspector; Šu-ilīsu, son of Ur-...; Pūsu-..., son of Dingir-aba; then two men whose names are lost, one of them the son of a man whose name began with the divine sign; Puzur-Zababa, son of ...-ra-ra; and finally Gišum, son of Ilala. Seven men in all, each tallied with the stroke for 'one.' Why they were listed — for work, rations, or service — the tablet does not say.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 Dingir-su-kal, son of Šu-ilīsu, the canal inspector(?); 1 Šu-ilīsu(?), son of Ur-[...]; 1 Pūsu-[...], son of Dingir-aba; 1 [...], son of AN-[...]; 1 [...], son of [...]; 1 Puzur-Zababa, son of ...-ra-ra; [1] Gišum, son of Ilala.
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
1(asz@c) dingir-su-kal dumu szu-i3-li2-su ku3#?-gal2 1(asz@c) szu-i3-li2-su#? dumu ur?-[...] 1(asz@c) pu3-su-[...] dumu dingir-a#-ba# 1(asz@c) [...] dumu AN-[...] 1(asz@c) [...] dumu [...] 1(asz@c) puzur4#-[]za#-ba4-ba4 dumu x?-ra-ra [1(asz@c)] gi-szum dumu i3-la-la
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MAD 5, 116. 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 (P212426) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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