Position in chronology
ARET 03, 009
About this tablet
A fragment of a palace textile ledger from Ebla in northern Syria, written around 2350 BCE in the local Semitic-flavoured cuneiform of the royal archive. It records sets of garments issued from the palace stores to a man whose name ends in -al (probably Ib-al), to his official agent or commissioner, and to a second man, Du-bi-da-lim. Thousands of such allotment records survive from Ebla's archive rooms: the standard issue was a set of two or three items — a coarse cloth, a wrap, and a coloured multi-band kilt — and the rank of the recipient can often be read off the quality of the cloth he received.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued from the palace stores: to [Ib]-al — (his allotment is lost in the break). To his commissioner: one gu-mug cloth, one SAL cloth, and one multicoloured three-band kilt. To Du-bi-da-lim: one TUG-NI-NI cloth and one multicoloured three-band kilt. The tablet breaks off here, and the remaining entries are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Ib]-al6. 1 gu-mug garment, 1 SAL-cloth, 1 multicoloured kilt (íb+3-TÚG-dar): his commissioner (maškim). 1 TUG-NI-NI cloth, 1 multicoloured kilt (íb+3-TÚG-dar): Du-bi-da-li-im. [the rest is broken away]
Our translation engine — Opus 5. 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
[ib]-al6 1(asz@c) _gu-mug_ 1(asz@c) _SAL_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ _maszkim_-su3 1(asz@c) TUG2-NI-NI 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ du#-bi2-da#-li-im [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 009. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Idlib, Syria (P242189) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.