Position in chronology

OSP 2, 077

~2270 BCE·Akkadian Empire·P216231

About this tablet

A small accounting note from Nippur in the Old Akkadian period (around 2300 BCE), the age of the Sargonic empire. It records a balance still owed: a quantity of silver and a large amount of barley that remain with a cupbearer named Ur-Inanna after a settlement of accounts. Texts like this show how palace and temple officials were held personally responsible for assets entrusted to them, and how scribes tracked outstanding debts across audits.

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

Written in modern English

Outstanding balance: one-third of a mina of silver minus two shekels, and 133 lidga-measures of barley. After the claim was settled, this is what remains in the hands of Ur-Inanna, the cupbearer.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine
Medium confidence
1. 1/3 (mina) of silver less 2 shekels, 2. 133 lidga of barley — 3. the claim having been settled (lit. "the matter of the claim put straight") — 4. with Ur-Inanna 5. the cupbearer 6. it is what remains (outstanding).
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.

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Transliteration

1/3(asz@c) ku3 la2 2(asz@c) gin2
2(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 3(asz@c) sze lid2-ga
nig2-di si-sa2-a
ki ur-inanna
sagi-ka
ib2-tak4-am3

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 077. 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 (P216231) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

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