MCS 9, 257

About this tablet

A small accounting tablet from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, written under the Akkadian (Sargonic) empire, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A scribe records three disbursements of coarse barley flour, measured by the capacity standard of Agade — the imperial capital — to three named individuals, then adds them up and dates the note. It is a glimpse of the everyday grain bureaucracy that fed people across the first territorial empire, and the arithmetic still checks out: the three entries sum exactly to the stated total.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Flour ledger, Agade standard measure. Issued: 160 liters of coarse barley flour to Lu-u; 10 liters to Mama-hursag; 75 liters to Libur. Total disbursed: 245 liters of coarse flour by the Agade measure. Logged in the second year, on the seventh day.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 2 barig 4 ban of dabin-flour (by the) Agade (standard) 2. — Lu-u; 3. 1 ban — Mama-hursag; 4. 1 barig 1 ban 5 sila 5. — Libur. 6. Total: 4 barig 5 sila of dabin-flour (by the) Agade (standard). 7. 2nd year, 7th day.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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

2(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) dabin# a-ga-de3
lu2-u3
1(ban2@c) ma-ma-hur-sag
1(barig@c) 1(ban2@c)# 5(disz) sila3#
li-bur
szunigin 4(barig@c) 5(disz) sila3 dabin a-ga-de3
2(disz@t) mu 7(disz@t) u4

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MCS 9, 257. 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 (P215528) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1