Position in chronology
OSP 2, 092
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative account from Nippur in southern Iraq, dating to the Old Akkadian (Sargonic) period, roughly 2300 BCE. It lists amounts beside the names of individuals, grouped under a heading naming a field beside the Unu canal — most likely a register of plots or shares of produce tied to that field. Many of the men bear names built on Enlil, the great god of Nippur, a vivid reminder that this city was the religious heart of Sumer and that its temple estates employed large numbers of ordinary workers and tenants.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is the middle of a ledger. After a lost opening, it reads: 22 for Dadi; 30 for Ur-kidma; another 3 for Ur-kidma; 12 for Enlila; 18 for Gissu; 24 for Enlile; 3 for Nig-Enlil. Then a subheading, 'the field on the Unu canal', introduces a second group: 9 for Enlilda; 24 for Ur-Enlil; 10 for Enlila; some number ending in 2 for Namtare; and a lost figure for Šagani. The beginning and the end of the tablet are broken, so we cannot see what commodity or unit was being counted or any final total.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Beginning destroyed) [...] 22 — Dadi 30 — Ur-kidma 3 — Ur-kidma 12 — Enlila 20 less 2 (= 18) — Gissu 24 — Enlile 3 — Nig-Enlil Field (of) the Unu canal: 10 less 1 (= 9) — Enlilda 24 — Ur-Enlil 10 — Enlila [n+]2 — Namtare [n] — Šagani [...] (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
[...] 2(u@c) 2(asz@c) da-di3 3(u@c) ur-kid2-ma 3(asz@c) ur-kid2-ma 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) en-lil2-la2 2(u@c) la2 2(asz@c) gissu 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) en-lil2-le 3(asz@c) nig2-en-lil2 GAN2 i7-unu 1(u@c) la2 1(asz@c) en-lil2-da 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) ur-en-lil2 1(u@c) en-lil2-la2 [n] 2(asz@c)# nam-tar-re2 [n] sza3#-ga-ni [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 092. 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 (P216246) — 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.