OSP 1, 059

About this tablet

A small administrative tablet from Nippur in the Sargonic (Old Akkadian) period, roughly 2300–2200 BCE. It is a list of beer allotments: a scribe records one or two units of beer each for a dozen or so people, mostly named individually (Ur-Utu, Ur-sag, Puzur-Eštar, Adda and others) and one identified only by his trade, the potter. Such lists show how a Nippur institution — probably a temple household — distributed drink to its workers and dependants, and the mix of Sumerian and Akkadian names (Puzur-Eštar beside Ur-Utu) reflects the bilingual population of the city under Akkadian rule.

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

Written in modern English

Beer distribution list. The potter gets one jar; Ur-Utu one; Ur-sag one; Ur-tur-tur one; Engar-mah one; a man whose name is partly lost (...-lulu) one; Puzur-Eštar two; Adda one; Lu-sukkal two. The next entry is too damaged to read, and the one after that preserves only part of a name, Lu-...-dugi. The list ends with one jar for Dingir-kalga. The edges of the tablet are chipped, so the first numeral and the first name are restored.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

1. [1] (jar of) beer — 2. the potter; 3. [1 — Ur]-Utu; 4. 1 — Ur-sag; 5. 1 — Ur-tur-tur; 6. 1 — Engar-maḫ; 7. 1 — ...-lu-lu; 8. 2 — Puzur-<Eš>tar; 9. 1 — Ad-da; 10. 2 — Lu-sukkal; 11. [...] ... ... ...; 12. [...] Lu-[...]-dugi; 13. 1 — Dingir-kalga.

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

[1(asz@c)] kasz#
bahar2#
[1(asz@c) ur]-utu
1(asz@c) ur-sag
1(asz@c) ur-tur-tur
1(asz@c) engar-mah
1(asz@c) x-lu2-lu2
2(asz@c) puzur4-<esz18>-dar
1(asz@c) ad-da
2(asz@c) lu2-sukkal
[...] x x x
[...] lu2 [...]-du-gi
1(asz@c) dingir-kal-ga

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 1, 059. 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 (P216116) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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