Position in chronology

OIP 014, 194

~2270 BCE·Akkadian Empire·P216049

About this tablet

A short administrative receipt from Adab (modern Bismaya in southern Iraq) in the Old Akkadian period, around 2300 BCE. It records wooden carrying-baskets and plough equipment brought in by named men, including scribes, and taken into the charge of a scribe named Inima from the palace stores. It is a glimpse of how the Sargonic state tracked even humble farming tools: every basket and plough that left the palace was written down, dated by month, and assigned to a responsible official.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

A number of wooden carrying-baskets (the figure is broken) were delivered by Lugal-adadu, Nisqu, and the scribe Ug-IL. The scribe Inima took charge of them, together with some plough equipment whose details are damaged, from the palace. The record is dated to the month Šuba-nun. The beginning of the tablet, with the exact quantity, is lost.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine
Medium confidence
obv. 1. [...] wooden carrying-baskets: 2. Lugal-adadu, 3. Nisqu, 4. (and) Ug-IL the scribe — 5. delivery. 6. Inima the scribe 7. ... plough [...] 8. from the palace 9. took in charge. 10. [Month:] Šuba-nun.
Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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

[...] dusu2 gesz
lugal#-a2-da-du
ni#-is-qu2
ug3-IL2 dub-sar
mu-kux(DU)
inim-ma dub-sar#
x apin [...]
e2-gal-ta
i3-dab5
[iti ]szuba3-nun

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OIP 014, 194. 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 (P216049) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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