Position in chronology
ARET 03, 026
About this tablet
A fragment of a textile-distribution record from the palace archives of Ebla in Syria, written around 2350 BCE. It logs the issue of fine garments — coloured belts and cloths — to named individuals, one of whom is Ibrium, the powerful vizier who effectively ran the Ebla state under its king. Thousands of such tablets survive from Ebla's Palace G, showing how a Bronze Age court tracked luxury textiles as instruments of pay, favor, and diplomacy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a clothing ledger entry: one high-quality multicoloured belt-garment was issued — the next line is lost — to Ibrium, the vizier. Then one NI-NI cloth and one multicoloured triple-band belt went to a man named Surabu. The word 'and' introduces a further recipient or item, but the tablet breaks off there and the rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 fine multicoloured belt-garment, [...] (for) Ibrium. 1 NI-NI-textile (and) 1 multicoloured triple belt-garment (for) Su-ra-bu, and ... [...]
Our translation engine — Fable 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
1(asz@c) _ib2 dar sa6 tug2_ [...] ib-ri2#-um 1(asz@c) TUG2-NI-NI 1(asz@c@90) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ su-ra-bu3 wa x [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 026. 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 (P242206) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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.