NMS A.1978.440

About this tablet

This is a short receipt from the Old Akkadian period, around 2300–2150 BCE, probably from Umma in southern Iraq. It records batches of flour, groats, beer-bread and malt sent out from the city to the Ipa'e canal for a four-day work assignment. Grain products, especially the makings of beer, were the basic wages and provisions of labour gangs, and canal maintenance was among the most important public works in Sumer. The quantities are recorded in the Akkadian state's standard 'sag-gal₂' gur measure, a small sign of imperial administration reaching into local book-keeping.

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

Written in modern English

Received: about 3 gur 1 barig 4 ban 7 sila of coarse flour, measured by the standard gur, plus 1 gur 2 barig 3 ban 1 sila of fine flour, 3 gur 3 ban and about 4½ sila of groats, 1 gur 3 barig 2 ban of beer-bread, 1 gur 2 barig 2 sila of ba-ba malt, and roughly 2 gur 2 ban 8½ sila of ordinary malt. This flour and malt was sent out from the city to the Ipa'e canal to cover four days of work there.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 3 gur 1 barig 4 ban 7 sila of dabin-flour, (measured by the) sag-gal₂ gur; 2. 1 gur 2 barig 3 ban 1 sila of fine flour; 3. 3 gur 3 ban 4 ½(?) sila of groats, gur; 4. 1 gur 3 barig 2 ban of beer-bread, gur; 5. 1 gur 2 barig 2 sila of ba-ba malt, gur; 6. 2(?) gur 2 ban 8 ½(?) sila of malt, gur; 7. flour (and) malt, which went out from the city; 8. labour of 4 days; 9. (at) the Ipa'e canal; 10. received.

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

3(asz@c) 1(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) 7(disz) sila3# dabin gur sag-gal2
1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) 1(disz) sila3 zi3 sig15
3(asz@c) 3(ban2@c) 4(disz) 1/2(disz)? sila3 nig2-ar3-ra gur
1(asz@c) 3(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) bappir gur
1(asz@c) 2(barig@c) 2(disz) sila3 munu4 ba-ba gur
2(asz@c)#? 2(ban2@c) 8(disz) 1/2(disz)? sila3 munu4 gur
zi3 munu4 iri-ta e3-a
a2 4(disz) u4
i7-pa-e3
szu ba#-ti

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — NMS A.1978.440. 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: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (P453065) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1