Position in chronology
OIP 014, 105
About this tablet
A small inventory of valuables from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written during the Akkadian (Sargonic) period, around 2300 BCE. It lists a shekel of silver, beads, some barley, a ring and two bronze-and-copper dress pins — the kind of portable wealth that a household or temple office kept track of, or that changed hands in a sale or dowry. The mention of something 'Subarian' points to goods associated with the northern lands of Subartu, a hint of trade reaching Adab from far away.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records a handful of valuables: one shekel of silver, a quantity of egg-shaped beads whose number is lost, an amount of barley also lost, and an item described as Subarian. Then come one silver object weighed by the shekel (its name is damaged), one ring, and two toggle-pins made of bronze and copper. The beginning of several lines is broken, so the exact quantities of the beads and barley cannot be recovered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [1] shekel of sil[ver], 2. [...] egg-shaped bead(s), 3. [...] barley, 4. [Su]bari[an] (Subartu-type), 5. 1 ...-NI of silver, (by the) shekel, 6. 1 ring, 7. 2 toggle-pins of bronze (and) copper.
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
[1(disz)] gin2 ku3-[babbar] [...] nunuz# [...] sze# [su]-birx(|SZIMxNIG2|)-[a] 1(asz@c) x-NI ku3 gin2# 1(asz@c) har 2(asz@c) tu-di3-da zabar uruda
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 105. 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 (P215962) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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