Position in chronology
MRAH O.5072
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2350–2150 BCE), from an unknown site in Mesopotamia, now in Brussels. A scribe records barley charged to three named men — small amounts of old grain used as donkey fodder — followed by a much larger figure, 116 gur, earmarked as loan barley carrying interest. It is a glimpse of the two faces of ancient grain management: everyday animal feed on one side, institutional credit on the other, possibly administered through a shrine.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Three men are each booked for barley: Lugal-magalzu for 4 gur, Ša-nugal for 4, and Šeš-zi for 1 — all of it old barley fed to the donkeys. Then comes the big entry: 116 gur of barley set aside as loan stock, grain lent out at interest. The next line seems to tie this to a shrine, with a man named Anne-šum involved, perhaps as the responsible official. The last two lines are too damaged to make out, beyond what looks like a closing note of ownership or assignment.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4 gur of barley — 2. Lugal-magalzu; 3. 4 (gur) — Ša-nugal; 4. 1 (gur) — Šeš-zi: 5. old barley, fodder consumed by the donkeys. 6. 116 gur of barley, 7. barley for the interest-bearing loan(s); 8. [...] ... of the shrine(?) 9. An(n)e-šum. 10. ... ... ... (line too damaged to read) 11. ... it is (that) of ...-huni(?).
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
4(asz@c) sze gur lugal#?-ma2?-gal-zu 4(asz@c)# sza3-nu-gal2 1(asz@c) szesz-zi sze sumun ansze gu7 1(gesz2@c) 5(u@c) 6(asz@c) sze gur# sze nig2# ur5-ra-sze3 [x?] x esz3?-ke4 an-ne-szum2 x ra x il x nun mar hu-ni-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MRAH O.5072. 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 (P453023) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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