Position in chronology
OSP 2, 076
About this tablet
A small Sargonic (Old Akkadian period, c. 2300 BCE) record from Nippur in southern Iraq listing valuables — silver by weight, a silver object called a gilum, an earring, a frog-shaped amulet or weight, a small silver emblem — plus a house plot of one sar (about 36 square metres). A person named U.ŠA-pa-e made all of this over to someone called Ama-nigtu under a legal heading, nam-gu₂, whose exact sense is not settled. It reads like a settlement, dowry, or transfer of property from one individual to another, an everyday legal-economic act that nonetheless was worth committing to clay.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Ten shekels of silver in the form of a gilum. One shekel of silver as an earring. One frog amulet worth a third of a shekel. One small silver emblem or pin, also a third of a shekel. Another ten shekels of silver. And a house plot of one sar. U.ŠA-pa-e made all of this over to Ama-nigtu as a nam-gu₂ — a designated share or obligation of some kind. That is the whole text; there are no witnesses or date.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 10 shekels of silver: a gilum (object); 2. 1 shekel of silver: an ear(-ring); 3. 1 frog(-amulet), (of) one-third (shekel); 4. 1 silver uri-emblem (pin?), (of) one-third (shekel); 5. 10 shekels of silver; 6. 1 house(-plot) of (1) sar. 7. U.ŠA-pa-e₃ 8. (for) Ama-nigtu 9. as a nam-gu₂ (assigned share) 10. made (them).
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(u@c) ku3 gin2 gi4-lum 1(asz@c) ku3 gin2 gesztu 1(asz@c) bi2-za-za igi 3(disz)-gal2 1(asz@c) uri3 ku3 igi 3(disz)-gal2 1(u@c) ku3 gin2 1(asz@c) e2 sar |U.SZA|-pa-e3 ama-nig2-tu nam-gu2-sze3 ba-ni-ak
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 076. 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 (P216230) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.