Position in chronology
OSP 2, 023
About this tablet
A badly damaged account of precious metal from Nippur in the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2150 BCE). The surviving lines record weights in minas, shekels and the tiny 'small mina' unit, summed up as a total of gold, apparently assigned to or on behalf of a man named Ušumgal. Even in ruins it shows the careful weighing of gold that temple and palace bookkeepers in Sargonic Nippur practised.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives reads like a ledger of gold by weight. The first entry gives so many minas plus some small minas; the next, after a lost name ending in '-da', gives so many minas and nine shekels; another name ending in '-li' follows. Then comes the total: roughly a third of a mina and one small mina of gold, recorded for a man called Ušumgal. The tablet's beginning, several names, and the final line are broken off and cannot be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [n mi]nas [...] small minas 2. [...] ...-da 3. [n minas] 10 minus 1 shekels 4. [...] ...-li 5. [Total: x] 1/3(?) mina [...] 1(?) small mina of gold 6. [for ...] Ušumgal, the male 7. [...] ...
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
[n _ma]-na_ [...] _ma-na tur_ [...] x-da [n _ma-na_] 1(u@c) _la2_ 1(asz@c) _gin2_ [...] x-li [_szu-nigin2_ x] 1/3(asz@c)#? _ma-na_ [...] 1(asz@c)#? _ma-na tur ku3-sig17_ [a-na ...] _uszumgal nita_ [...] x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 023. 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 (P216174) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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