Position in chronology
MCS 9, 254
About this tablet
An everyday ration and provisions account from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, written during the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A scribe lists bread loaves and jugs of beer of two different strengths issued to named individuals — men with Akkadian names like Imtalik and Ilī-aḫī — followed by a running total and quantities of flour and brewing barley, dated to the seventh day of a month whose name is lost. Tablets like this are the receipts and ledgers of an ancient bureaucracy that paid its people in food and drink rather than money.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a disbursement ledger: sixty bread loaves and a measure of strong (5-ban grade) beer head the account. Banum received one ban of the weaker 3-ban beer; Imtalik got two ban of beer; Ilī-aḫī one ban of the strong beer; and Šar-ruru a mixed allotment of both grades. The scribe then totals it up — sixty breads, fifty of them baked loaves — along with the beer in jugs of each grade, plus one ban and two sila of fine 'Agade' flour and one barig five ban less one sila of barley set aside for brewing. The record closes with the date: the seventh day of a month whose name is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 60 breads, 1 ban of 5-ban beer; 2. 1 ban of 3-ban beer (per) gur — Banum; 3. 2 ban of beer — Imtalik; 4. [1 ban] of 5-ban beer — Ilī-aḫī; 5. [1 ban(?) of beer], 1 barig 1 ban(?); 1 ban of 3-ban beer — 6. Šar-ruru; 7. [Total: 60] breads, 50 baked(?); 8. [1 ban of beer], 1 barig 1 ban — [jug(s)]; 9. 1 (jug): 1 ban of 5-ban beer — jug; 10. 2 ban of 3-ban beer — jug; 11. 1 ban 2 sila of Agade-flour; 12. 1 barig 5 ban less 1 sila of barley for beer; 13. [...] month, day 7.
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(gesz2@c) ninda 1(ban2@c) kasz 5(ban2@c) 1(ban2@c) kasz 3(ban2@c) gur ba-num2 2(ban2@c) kasz# im6#-ta2-lik [1(ban2@c)] kasz# 5(ban2@c) i3-li2-a-hi [1(ban2@c)? kasz] 1(barig@c)# 1(ban2@c)# 1(ban2@c)# kasz 3(ban2@c) szar-ru-ru [szunigin 1(gesz2@c)] ninda 5(u) du8 [1(ban2@c) kasz] 1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c) [dug] 1(asz@c) 1(ban2@c) kasz 5(ban2@c) dug# 2(ban2@c) kasz# 3(ban2@c) dug# 1(ban2@c) 2(disz@t) sila3 zi3 a-ga-de3 1(barig@c) 5(ban2@c) la2 1(disz@t) sila3 sze kasz [...] iti# 7(disz@t) u4
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MCS 9, 254. 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: World Museum Liverpool, Liverpool, UK (P215525) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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