MVN 03, 103

About this tablet

A short barley account from Sargonic Mesopotamia (about 2300–2150 BCE), from the age of the Akkadian kings. Its exact findspot is unknown, and it is now in the Free Library of Philadelphia. The heading records an amount of barley described as 'of silver', probably barley bought with silver or valued against it. The list then gives standard portions, mostly 2 barig each, to about a dozen named people, among them a woman identified only as someone's wife. It shows ordinary grain allocation in a period when barley and silver were both used to measure value.

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

Written in modern English

Barley account: 2 gur and 2 barig of barley, counted as barley paid for (or valued in) silver. 2 barig went for KUM.KU and came from the king's son. Next come the recipients, each named with an amount. Dugani's wife, Nin-nigzu, Lugal-nigzu, GANG-abzu, Ur-Enlila, Lugala (his entry is partly broken) and Amar-ezem received 2 barig each. Ur-PA, son of Ur-sisi, received 1 barig. The last line gives a full gur to someone whose name is partly damaged, probably ARAD-e, son of a man whose name ends in -e.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Obverse (?) 1. 2 gur 2 barig of barley: it is (barley) of/for silver. 2. 2 barig: for KUM.KU, 3. from the king's son (or: the prince). 4. 2 barig: the wife of Dugani. 5. 2 barig: Nin-nigzu. 6. 2 barig: Lugal-nigzu. 7. 2 barig: GANG-abzu. 8. 2 barig: Ur-Enlila. 9. [2 barig]: Lugala. 10. 2 barig: Amar-ezem. 11. 1 barig: Ur-PA, 12. son of Ur-sisi. 13. 1 gur: ARAD?-e, son of x-e.

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

2(asz@c) 2(barig@c) sze ku3-kam
2(barig@c) KUM.KU-sze3
dumu lugal-ta#
2(barig@c) dam du11-ga-ni
2(barig@c) nin-nig2#-zu
2(barig@c) lugal-nig2-zu
2(barig@c) GANG-ab-zu
2(barig@c) ur-en-lil2-la2#
[2(barig@c)] lugal-la2
2(barig@c) amar-ezem
1(barig@c) ur#-PA
dumu ur-si-si
1(asz@c) ARAD#?-e2 dumu x-e2

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — MVN 03, 103. 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 (P215753) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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