OAIC 06

About this tablet

A short legal-administrative memorandum from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in eastern Iraq), written during the Akkadian period around 2300 BCE. It lists six named people, headed by the city overseer Dalim, and declares them witnesses: they inspected a stock of barley belonging to a man called Naṣir-ili and confirmed that barley had been consumed. It is a small window into how an early Mesopotamian town handled accountability for grain — the facts were established by having respected townsmen look at the goods themselves and having a scribe record their names.

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

Written in modern English

Six people are listed one by one: Dalim, the city overseer, along with Geme-zu, Iptium, Sipa-itum, Mašum and Ilala. In total, six witnesses. They attest that the barley (the sign after 'barley' is unclear) was used up, and that they themselves examined the barley belonging to Naṣir-ili. That is the whole record.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. 1 Dalim, overseer of the city, 2. and 1 Geme-zu, 3. 1 Iptium, 4. 1 Sipa-itum, 5. 1 Mašum, 6. 1 Ilala. 7. Total: 6 witnesses (that) 8. the barley, GA, was consumed; 9. the barley of Naṣir-ili 10. they inspected.

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 — Fable 5.1. 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) da-lim _ugula iri_
u3 1(asz@c) _geme2_-zu
1(asz@c) ip-ti-um
1(asz@c) sipa-i3-tum
1(asz@c) ma-szum
1(asz@c)# i3-la-la
szunigin 6(asz@c) _abba2_-bu-ut
_sze GA gu7_
_sze_ sza na-s,i2-ir-i3-li
e-mu-ru

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 06. 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: Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P215878) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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