Position in chronology
OAIC 48
About this tablet
A small administrative memorandum from Ešnunna (modern Tell Asmar in the Diyala region of Iraq) dating to the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It is a terse list of people, places and goods — a leatherworker named Libur, bread, oil, flour and cakes stored 'in the rear', a man named Bēlī-..., the kitchen, quantities of barley and a garment. It is the kind of working note a storehouse official jotted down to keep track of supplies and who was responsible for them, written in Akkadian with Sumerian logograms at a time when the Semitic-speaking Akkad dynasty controlled the region.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Libur the leatherworker — in the back storeroom. Bread and oil, flour and cakes — in the back storeroom. Bēlī-[...]: tabrium. The kitchen. A certain amount of barley (the quantity is broken off); barley, 'li-si' (meaning unclear). A line is lost here. Then: one guzītum garment. It is a checklist of goods and the people or rooms they are associated with; several entries are damaged and the figures cannot be recovered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. Libur, 2. the leatherworker, 3. in the rear (storeroom); 4. bread (and) oil, 5. flour (and) cake, 6. in the rear (storeroom); 7. Bēlī-[...], 8. tabrium; 9. the kitchen (house of the cook); 10. [...]-at of barley, 11. barley: li-si(?); 12. [...] 13. a guzītum-garment.
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
li-bur _aszgab_ in# _a-ga2_ _ninda i3_ _zi3 gug2_ in# _a-ga2_ be-li2-[...] tab#-ri#-um _e2-muhaldim_ [...]-at _sze_ _sze_ li?-si [...] tug2 gu-zi-ti-[im]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OAIC 48. 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 (P215920) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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