Position in chronology
MRAH O.5008
About this tablet
A small administrative receipt from the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300–2200 BCE. It records two modest measures of flour issued to a man with the Akkadian name Šarru-ilī ('the king is my god'), who had travelled for barley, with the goods going to Agade — the imperial capital founded by Sargon, whose site has never been found. The scribe Ur-da countersigned the transaction as the responsible official, and the text closes with a month name. It is the ordinary paperwork of provisioning a traveller under the world's first territorial empire.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued: three ban of fine flour and three ban of za-tum flour to Šarru-ilī, who came here on the barley business. The goods were given out for Agade. Ur-da, the scribe, signed off as the official responsible for the transaction. Dated in the month Šuba-nun. In modern terms: a travel-provision chit — roughly 60 liters of flour in two grades handed to a named courier bound for the capital, with the supervising clerk and the month on record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 ban (of) fine flour, 2. 3 ban (of) za-tum flour: 3. (to) Šarru-ilī, 4. who had come here for the barley (— the sign before 'barley' is uncertain —), 5. to Agade 6. it was given. 7. Ur-da, 8. the scribe, 9. was the responsible official (maškim) thereof. 10. Month: Šuba-nun.
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(ban2@c) zi3-gu 3(ban2@c)# zi3 za-tum szar-ru-i3-li2 MUSZ3? sze-sze3 im-szi-gen-na-am3 a-ga-de3-sze3 an-na-szum2 ur-da dub-sar maszkim-bi itix(|UD@sxBAD|) szuba2-nun
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MRAH O.5008. 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: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P452983) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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