Position in chronology
OIP 014, 107
About this tablet
A small bookkeeping tablet from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, dating to the Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2200 BCE). It records small issues of two prized commodities — ghee (clarified butter) and fine sesame oil — to a handful of recipients, the first being the city governor himself, and closes with running totals and the note that the oil has been 'expended'. Such slips show how carefully even a few litres of high-quality fat were tracked by the palace or temple stores, and that the governor drew his supplies from the same accounts as lesser officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an oil account. A quantity of good ghee went to the governor; a quantity of good sesame oil went to a second party whose line is damaged. One sila (about a litre) went to someone called '...-dub', possibly for the 'lady' or a person named Nin-ka-...; another sila and then a third of a sila, less some amount, went to recipients whose names are broken. The totals: one sila of good ghee and six sila of good sesame oil. The oil is booked as expended. The last line names the official responsible, whose name ends in '-kalle'; its beginning is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [n sila of ghee], good (quality), 2. (for) the governor; 3. [n sila of] sesame [oil], good (quality), 4. [...] ... ... [...]; 5. 1 sila(?) ...-dub, (for) the lady / Nin- 6. ka-[...]; 7. 1 sila [...]; 8. 1/3 sila less [...]. 9. Total: 1 sila of ghee, good (quality); 10. total: 6 sila of sesame oil, good (quality). 11. Oil expended (booked as expenditure). 12. [...]-kalle.
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
[n sila3 i3-nun] du10#-ga# ensi2# [n sila3 i3]-gesz du10-ga [...] hi gesz x 1(disz) sila3#? x-dub2 nin ka-[...] 1(disz) sila3 [...] 1/3(disz) sila3 la2 [...] szunigin 1(disz) sila3 i3-nun du10-ga szunigin 6(disz) sila3# i3-gesz du10-ga i3 zi-ga [...]-kal-le#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 107. 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 (P215964) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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