Position in chronology
OIP 014, 098
About this tablet
A small accounting docket from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It records a disbursement of fats and oil — two jars of lard apparently issued for a group of fifty-one 'select' personnel and twenty musicians on the occasion of a festival, plus a small amount of oil for a named individual. The record is closed by the name of the official responsible, Ur-dingira, who held the title of barber (a palace functionary who also handled oils and cosmetics). It is a glimpse of how festival provisioning was tracked in a provincial Sumerian city under Akkadian rule.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two jars of lard went out for fifty-one select staff and twenty musicians, in connection with the festival of še-[...] (the festival's name is partly broken; the fourth line, 'ib-še', is unclear). Two-thirds of a sila of oil — roughly two-thirds of a liter — went to Išbe-Elili. These amounts are booked as oil expenditure. The official who signed off on the issue was Ur-dingira, the barber.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 jars of lard, 2. 51 select (personnel), 3. 20 musicians, 4. ib-še (?), 5. (at) the festival of še-[...]; 6. 2/3 sila of [oil]: 7. Išbe-E[lili]; 8. oil expended (booked expenditure). 9. Ur-dingira, the barber.
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
2(asz@c) dug i3-szah2 5(u) 1(disz) ni-is-qu2 2(u) nar ib2-sze ezem sze-[...] 2/3(disz) sila3 [i3] isz11-be-e2-li#-[li] i3 zi-ga ur-dingir-ra szu-i
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 098. 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: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P215955) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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