Position in chronology
OIP 014, 164
About this tablet
A small land-and-grain memorandum from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It records a few plots of field measured in iku, a quantity of grain measured in barig and ban, and the men responsible for them — Ur-Emah and Ur-gu — under a foreman named E-bur. One plot belongs to the Emah, the great temple of Adab, so this is a glimpse of how temple-managed farmland and seed were parcelled out among working crews. The everyday bookkeeping of an agricultural economy, written on a palm-sized clay tablet.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One barig and three ban of grain for the small arable tract, assigned to Ur-Emah. Four iku of field at Igi-bar; two iku as a work allotment, also at Igi-bar; one iku of field belonging to the Emah temple. One barig of grain for the strip beside the ruined part, assigned to Ur-gu. The foreman in charge is E-bur.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 barig 3 ban (of seed grain): the small arable tract — 2. Ur-Emah. 3. 4 iku of field, Igi-bar; 4. 2 iku, work-assignment, Igi-bar; 5. 1 iku of field, (of) the Emah. 6. 1 barig, beside its ruined (part) — 7. Ur-gu. 8. Foreman: E-bur.
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
1(barig) 3(ban2) agar4 tur ur-e2-mah 4(iku@c) GAN2 igi-bar 2(iku@c) esz2-gar3 igi-bar 1(iku@c) GAN2 e2-mah 1(barig)# da gul-la-ba ur-gu ugula e2-bur3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 164. 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 (P216020) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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