MVN 03, 063

About this tablet

A short Old Akkadian (Sargonic, c. 2300–2150 BCE) account said to come from Isin in southern Iraq, now in the Free Library of Philadelphia. It lists foodstuffs and small goods: an onion or garlic entry, two allotments of barley (one apparently earmarked for wine), six tongues (probably cuts of meat), thirty pegs, four fish, and two broken entries counted with the word gu₂. It reads like a list of provisions or supplies, possibly for a meal or an offering, though no recipient, official or date survives to show what the occasion was.

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

Written in modern English

Item: one unit of garlic or onions. Item: two barig of barley. Item: one barig and three ban of barley set aside for wine. Item: six tongues. Item: thirty pegs. Item: four fish of the a-gu₂ kind. The last two lines are damaged. One lists twenty of something, the other sixty of something, and both are counted in gu₂, which may mean loads or talents.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

Obverse(?) 1. 1 (unit of) garlic/onions; 2. 2 barig: it is (that) of barley; 3. 1 barig 3 ban of barley: it is (that) of wine; 4. 6 tongues; 5. 30 pegs; 6. 4 a-gu₂ fish; 7. 20 x [...] gu₂; 8. 60 [...] gu₂.

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 — Opus 5.5. 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

1(asz@c) szum2
2(barig) sze-kam
1(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) sze gesztin-kam
6(asz@c) eme
3(u) gag
4(asz@c) ku6 a-gu2
2(u) x [...] gu2#
1(gesz2) [...] gu2

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MVN 03, 063. 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 (P215716) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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