Position in chronology
OAIC 39
About this tablet
A short personnel list from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in the Diyala region of Iraq), written in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300–2200 BCE. Under the heading 'ŠUBUR' — a term for a class of dependent workers or servants — a scribe lists nine or so men by name, some identified by their father or their trade: a copper-worker, something to do with wood, and the foreman of the carpenters. It is a glimpse of the craft labour force attached to a household or institution in a provincial Akkadian town, the kind of roster used to track who was on the books.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Here is the list of dependent workers: Urrim; Libur; Lulu, who works copper; someone connected with wood (the name is broken away); Admar; Dingir-gi; Bēlī, son of Bubu; and Izur-basu, son of Amatu, the man in charge of the carpenters. No quantities or payments are recorded — it is simply a roll of names.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. ŠUBUR (servants/dependents): 2. Urrim, 3. Libur, 4. Lulu, the copper(-worker), 5. wood [...], 6. Admar, 7. Dingir-gi, 8. Bēlī, 9. son of Bubu, 10. Izur-basu, 11. son of Amatu, foreman of the carpenters.
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
_szubur_ ur-ri2-im# li-bur _lu3-lu3 uruda_ gesz [...] ad-mar dingir-gi be-li2 _dumu_ bu-bu i-zu-ur-ba-su# _dumu_ ama-tu _ugula nagar_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 39. 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 (P215911) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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