Position in chronology
OAIC 35
About this tablet
A small Old Akkadian account tablet from Ešnunna (Tell Asmar in eastern Iraq), written around 2300–2200 BCE, now in Chicago's Field Museum. It lists modest sums of silver — a few shekels each, one earmarked for a ring — alongside three named types of garment, and ends with a two-way exchange: one party handed over a shekel of silver, and the writer gave back a garment. It is a private memorandum of small-scale transfers of valuables, the kind of everyday note that shows how silver and cloth circulated together as wealth in an Akkadian-period town.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five shekels of silver, set aside for a ring. One shekel of silver for Tesitum. One shekel of silver for Ṭāb-ilī. Then three garments: one of the burutum kind, one of the našpartum kind, one of the zimtum kind. He handed over one shekel of silver to me, and I gave him one bala-garment in return. That is the whole note — a brief tally of silver and cloth changing hands.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 5 shekels of silver, 2. (that) of a ring (šewirum), 3. 1 shekel of silver, 4. Tesitum; 5. 1 shekel of silver, 6. Ṭāb-ilī; 7. 1 burutum-garment, 8. 1 našpartum-garment, 9. 1 zimtum-garment; 10. 1 shekel of silver he gave (to me); 11. 1 bala-garment I gave to him.
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
5(asz@c) _gin2 ku3-babbar_ szu si-wi#-ra 1(asz@c) _gin2 ku3-babbar_ te-si-tum 1(asz@c) _gin2 ku3-babbar_ tab-i3-li2 1(asz@c) tug2 bu-ru-tum 1(asz@c) tug2 na-asz2-pa2-ar-tum 1(asz@c) tug2 zi-im-tum 1(asz@c) _gin2 ku3_ i-di3-nam 1(asz@c) _tug2 bala_ a#-ti-szum
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 35. 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 (P215907) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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