Position in chronology
OIP 014, 127
About this tablet
A small livestock account from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2300 BCE). It records two batches of sheep and goats — fat-tailed sheep, young goats, and 'mountain sheep' — the first group of 22 animals handed over by a man named Ka-ka. The tablet is a typical piece of herd bookkeeping from a palace or temple administration, showing how animals were counted by type and tracked as they changed hands.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Six fat-tailed sheep, three young goats and thirteen mountain sheep — twenty-two animals in all. Ka-ka handed them over to him. Then a second batch: nine fat-tailed sheep, ten mountain sheep, and a number of young goats whose figure is broken off ('minus one' survives). The text breaks off after this second group, so we do not learn its total or who received it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. 6 fat-tailed sheep, 2. 3 kids, 3. 13 mountain sheep; 4. total: 22 sheep (and goats). 5. Ka-ka 6. gave (them) to him. 7. 9 fat-tailed sheep, 8. 10 mountain sheep, 9. [...] minus 1 kids. (rest of the supplied text ends here)
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
6(asz@c) gukkal 3(asz@c) masz2 1(u@c) 3(asz@c) udu kur szunigin 2(u@c) 2(asz@c) udu ka-ka e-na-szum2 1(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) gukkal 1(u@c) udu kur [...] la2 1(asz@c) masz2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 127. 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 (P215983) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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Related sources
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