MVN 03, 088

About this tablet

A short Old Akkadian silver account, from about 2300–2200 BCE, recording small amounts of silver measured in shekels next to eight personal names. One of them is a silversmith. The tablet does not say whether the silver was paid out, owed, or contributed, so its purpose is unclear. Lists like this show that silver was already working as money in third-millennium Mesopotamia, counted down to fractions of a shekel.

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

Written in modern English

A list of silver amounts by person: Šu-ilda, 1 shekel; Ur-Inanna, 2 shekels; Bar-ene, 1 shekel; Ur-šagake, 1 shekel; Lugal-nig-bara-du the silversmith, two-thirds of a shekel; Dada, 1 shekel; Ba-anda, one-sixth of a shekel; Mani, 1 shekel. Altogether it comes to just under 8 shekels. The list does not say whether the silver was handed out or collected.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1 shekel of silver: Šu-ilda; 2 (shekels): Ur-Inanna; 1 (shekel): Bar-ene; 1 (shekel): Ur-šagake; 2/3 (shekel) ma(?): Lugal-nig-bara-du, the silversmith; 1 (shekel): Dada; 1/6 (shekel): Ba-anda; 1 (shekel): Mani.

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.

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Transliteration

1(asz@c) ku3 gin2
szu12#-dingir-da
2(asz@c) ur-inanna
1(asz@c) bar en-ne2
1(asz@c) ur-sza3#-ga2#-ke4
2/3(|NINDA2x(SZE.2(ASZ))|) ma lugal-nig2-bara4-du10 ku3-dim2
1(asz@c) da-da
igi 6(disz)-gal2 ba-an-da
1(asz) ma-ni

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MVN 03, 088. 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 (P215740) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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