OAIC 26

About this tablet

A small field-survey record from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in the Diyala region of Iraq) from the Old Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. A surveyor has paced out the sides of a plot with a measuring rope and a reed, noting the length on each compass side — west, east, south, north — and the oxen (plough-teams) associated with each stretch, before stating the total area in the last line. It is a glimpse of how the Akkadian state measured and allotted farmland, the basic arithmetic of ancient land management.

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

Written in modern English

This is a surveyor's note on a field. On the west side it runs 2 ropes and 3 reeds, with a (lost) number of oxen; on the east side, 1 rope and 1 reed, again with oxen whose number is broken; on the south side 1 ox and 1 rope; on the north side 1 ox and 2 ropes plus 1 reed; a further stretch of 1 1/2 ropes on the south; and 3 ropes and 1 reed on the west. Altogether the plot comes to a (partly lost) area of 1 iku and 20 sar — a little over a third of a hectare of farmland, plus whatever is broken away at the start of the last line.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

1. [n] oxen; 2 measuring-ropes (and) 3 reeds, (on) the west side. 2. [n oxen; n (ropes)] 1 measuring-rope (and) 1 reed, (on) the east side. 3. 1 ox; 1 measuring-rope, (on) the south side. 4. 1 ox; 2 measuring-ropes [(and) n] 1 reed, (on) the [north] side. 5. 1 1/2 [measuring-ropes, (on) the] south [side]. 6. 3 measuring-ropes (and) 1 reed, (on) the west side. 7. [n] (bur/eše) 1 iku of field, 20 sar.

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

[n] gu4 2(asz@c) esz2-gid2 3(disz) gi im# mar-tu
[n gu4 n] 1(asz@c) esz2-gid2 1(disz) gi im# kur
1(asz@c) gu4 1(asz@c) esz2-gid2 im u5
1(asz@c) gu4 2(asz@c) esz2-gid2 [n] 1(disz) gi im [mer]
1(asz@c) 1/2(asz@c) [esz2-gid2-im] u5
3(asz@c) esz2-gid2 1(disz) gi im mar-tu#
[n] 1(iku@c) GAN2 2(u) sar

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 26. 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 (P215898) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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