Position in chronology
OIP 014, 174
About this tablet
A small receipt from the city of Adab in southern Iraq, written in the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE). It records animal hides — from sheep, lambs and young goats — handed over by two men, Amar-gir and Lugal-e, presumably to a central household or workshop. Such slips are the raw accounting behind the leather industry of early Mesopotamia: hides were tracked carefully because they were valuable raw material for sandals, straps, bags and harness.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received from Amar-gir: 28 sheep hides, 25 lamb hides and 32 kid-goat hides. Received from Lugal-e: 8 sheep hides and 13 kid-goat hides. That is the whole document — a short tally of animal skins delivered by two individuals, with no date or official named.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 30 less 2 (= 28) [sheep] hides 2. 25 lamb hides 3. 32 goat-kid hides 4. from Amar-gir 5. 8 sheep hides 6. 13 goat-kid hides 7. from Lugal-e
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
3(u) la2 2(asz@c) kusz [udu] 2(u) 5(disz) kusz sila4 3(u) 2(disz) kusz masz2 ki amar-gir#-ta 8(disz) kusz udu 1(u) 3(disz) kusz masz2 ki lugal-e2-ta
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 174. 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 (P216030) — 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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