Position in chronology
OSP 2, 026
About this tablet
A fragmentary administrative account from Nippur in southern Iraq, dating to the Old Akkadian period (roughly 2300–2200 BCE), when the city was under the rule of the dynasty of Sargon of Akkad. It tallies very large weights of some material — tens of talents, each talent about 30 kilograms — against quantities of 'large brick' items, so it most likely tracks raw material issued for a construction or manufacturing project. The tablet survives only as two joined fragments, and the commodity being weighed is lost, but it illustrates the scale of resources an Akkadian-period temple or palace administration at Nippur moved and recorded.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives reads like an issue ledger. The opening line records something for a laḫmu (the name or term is damaged). Then: 40 talents and 15 minas — well over a tonne of material — allocated for six large brick units, followed by another entry of so many talents and 32 minas. After that only the numbers remain: 6 of something, perhaps 20, perhaps 10, then 24 of something, then 3. Everything after the quantities, and the rest of the tablet, is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 1. [For x] laḫmu [...] 2. 40 talents 15 mi[nas] 3. for 6 large brick-[sets?] [...] 4. [...] talents 32 mi[nas] 5. 6 ... [...] 6. 20(?) [...] 7. 10(?) [...] 8. 24 ... [...] 9. 3 [...] (rest destroyed)
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
[a-na x] la-ah-me [...] 4(u@c) _gu2_ 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) _ma-[na_] a-na 6(asz@c) _nig2-sig4 gal_ [...] [...] _gu2#_ 3(u@c) 2(asz@c) _ma#-[na_] 6(asz@c) x [...] 2(u@c)#? [...] 1(u@c)#? [...] 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) x [...] 3(asz@c) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 026. 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 (P216177) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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