Position in chronology
OSP 2, 181
About this tablet
A small administrative note from Nippur in the Sargonic period (about 2300 BCE), when the city lay under the rule of the dynasty of Akkad. It records amounts of onions or garlic, measured in the large 'lidga' unit and its barig subdivisions, booked against named individuals — one entry apparently destined for the capital, Agade. It is a scrap of the everyday bookkeeping by which a provincial temple or household tracked produce and the people responsible for it.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists allotments of onions. The first entry, now restored, is 1 lidga and 2 barig charged to Aga-kiag, to be sent to Agade. Then: 1 lidga for Dada; 2 barig for Ur-tir, son of E-ku; 2 barig for a man called E-geš-something; 1 barig for Ur-tir; and 1 barig for another man whose name begins Ur-. The last line and the rest of the tablet are too broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [1 lidga 2 barig of onions (lidga measure)] 2. Aga-kiag 3. to Agad[e]. 4. 1 lidga: 5. Dada. 6. 2 barig: Ur-tir, 7. son of E-ku. 8. 2 barig: E-geš[...]. 9. 1 barig: Ur-tir. 10. 1 barig: Ur-[...]. 11. ... [...] (rest broken)
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(asz) 2(barig) szum2 lid2-ga] aga-ki-ag2 a-ga-de3-[sze3] 1(asz@c) lid2-ga da-da 2(barig@c) ur-tir dumu e2-kux(KWU636)# 2(barig@c) e2-gesz [...] 1(barig@c) ur-tir# 1(barig@c) ur-[...] x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Akkadian (ca. 2340-2200 BC)) — OSP 2, 181. 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 (P216335) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5-1 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).
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