Position in chronology
OSP 1, 058
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from Nippur in southern Iraq, written under the Sargonic (Old Akkadian) dynasty around 2300 BCE. It is a short distribution list: beer, one unit each, handed out to a handful of people identified by profession (a potter, an overseer) or by name, including a man with the Akkadian name Ilum-rabi ('the god is great'). Dated to the 28th day of the month Kin-Inanna, it is a scrap of the daily ration bookkeeping that kept temple and household staff supplied, and shows Sumerian and Akkadian speakers working side by side in the same institution.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Beer issued, one jar apiece: to the potter; to Ur-sag; to the overseer; to someone whose name is broken; to another whose name is lost; to Pa-[...]; to Ane-[da]; to Ilum-rabi; and to one more person whose name is gone. Dated the 28th of the month Kin-Inanna. Several entries are too damaged to read, but each surviving line follows the same one-unit pattern.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 1 (jar of) beer — 2. the potter; 3. 1 — Ur-sag; 4. [1] — the overseer; 5. [...]-an-[...]; 6. 1 — x [...]; 7. 1 — Pa?-[...]; 8. 1 — Ane-[da]; 9. 1 — Ilum-rabi; 10. 1 — [...]. 11. Month: Kin-Inanna, 12. day 30 less 2 (= the 28th day).
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
1(asz@c) kasz bahar2 1(asz@c) ur-sag [1(asz@c)] nu-banda3 [...]-an-[...] 1(asz@c) x [...] 1(asz@c) pa?-[...] 1(asz@c) a-ne-[da] 1(asz@c) i3-lum-ra-bi2# 1(asz@c) [...] iti# kin-inanna u4 3(u@c) la2 2(asz@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 1, 058. 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: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P216115) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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