Position in chronology
OAIC 46
About this tablet
A small administrative memorandum from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in eastern Iraq), written in the Akkadian period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. It jots down items — beer, barley, silver, a female worker attached to the goddess Inanna — against officials such as the governor and the chief household administrator, apparently in connection with an 'allotment'. It is terse to the point of obscurity: a scribe's note-to-self rather than a formal account, but it shows how temple personnel, provincial officials and commodities were tracked together in one of the Sargonic empire's eastern cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a checklist. It notes beer for the allotment, and the governor in charge of that allotment; the chief administrator of the household; beer for the man of some place whose name is now broken away; an entry for Inanna, and another for the city of Ešnunna, each followed by the same tag 'gur'; a line reading 'eš-ra'; barley; silver together with the allotment; and a female worker belonging to the temple of Inanna. No totals or dates are given, and several of the entries are too cryptic to explain with confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. beer of the allotment (šīmtum), 2. and the governor 3. of the allotment; 4. the chief household administrator; 5. beer of the man of [...]; 6. Inanna — gur; 7. eš-ra; 8. barley — HU; 9. silver and (of) the allotment; 10. the female worker of Inanna; 11. Išnun — gur.
Our translation engine — Fable 5.1. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
_kasz_ szu si-[im]-tim u3 _ensi2_ szu si-im-tim _szabra e2_ _kasz lu2_-[...] _inanna gur_ esz2-ra _sze HU_ _ku3-babbar_ u3 si-im-tim _geme2 inanna_ isz-nun _gur_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 46. 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 (P215918) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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