Position in chronology
MVN 03, 059
About this tablet
A short bookkeeping record from the Sargonic (Old Akkadian) period, around 2300–2150 BCE, tracking a harvest of dates from an orchard belonging to Enlil-anna, a temple administrator. The scribe records the gross yield and then lists where it went: a large share to one person, some loaded onto a boat bound for or belonging to Nippur, some eaten as provisions, and one gur apparently exchanged against silver. It is a small window into how temple estates in the Nippur region managed and moved their date crop.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Dates harvested from the orchard of Enlil-anna, the temple administrator: forty gur, minus two gur and three ban. Here is where they went: thirty gur to Arab-tasi; one gur and five ban onto the Nippur boat; three gur used up as food provisions; and one gur of dates set against a shekel of silver. The closing lines seem to label the account as belonging to the 'bank of Enlil' and to mark it as the total, though their exact sense is unclear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse/Reverse (not distinguished in the source) 1. 40 gur less 2 gur 3 ban: dates, 2. (from the) orchard of Enlil-anna, the temple administrator (sanga). 3. From it: 4. 30 gur: 5. Arab-tasi; 6. 1 gur 5 ban: the boat of Nippur; 7. 3 gur: provisions (consumed); 8. 1 gur of dates: 9. for (?) a shekel of silver. 10. Bank of Enlil (?); 11. it is the total (?).
Our translation engine — Opus 5.5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
4(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) 3(ban2@c) zu2-lum gur kiri6 en-lil2-an-na sanga sza3-bi-ta 3(u@c) gur a-ra-ab-ta-si 1(asz@c) 5(ban2@c) ma2 nibru 3(asz) gur nig2 gu7-a 1(asz@c) zu2-lum gur bar ku3 gin2 gu2 en-lil2-ke4 gu2-ba-kam#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MVN 03, 059. 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: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P215712) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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