Position in chronology
ARET 03, 034
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative textile account from Ebla in western Syria, written around 2400 BCE in the palace archive of one of the great powers of the Early Bronze Age. It records issues of garments — cloaks, fine cloths, and colorful kilts — some of them earmarked for singers, and dates the transaction to the month Ibasa of the local Eblaite calendar. Records like this, found by the thousands in the burned palace archive, show how the Ebla court used textiles as wages, gifts, and diplomatic currency.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An inventory of clothing handed out by the palace: at least five gu-dul garments, fourteen pieces of fine cloth, and fifteen multicolored kilts went to the singers. A few further single-item entries follow — one garment and one more colored kilt — but the details are broken away. The record is dated to the month of Ibasa and carries the label AN-ŠE-GU. It closes with a batch of twenty-three ʾa-da-um cloaks of the gu-zi type and the start of another figure, ten-plus something, before the tablet breaks off.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [n +] 5 gu-dul₃ garments, 14 fine (SAL) textiles, 15 multicolored íb-III kilts — (for) the singers. 1 [...] 1 ... textile, 1 multicolored íb-III kilt [...] Month: Ibasa. AN-ŠE₃-GU₂. 23 gu-zi ʾa-da-um cloaks. 10 [+ n ...] (rest broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[n] 5(disz) _gu-dul3_ 1(u@c) 4(asz@c) _SAL_ 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ NAR-_nar_ 1(asz@c) [...] 1(asz@c) _tug2_ x [x] 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ [...] _iti_ i-ba4-sa AN-SZE3-GU2 2(u@c) 3(asz@c) gu-zi 'a3-da-um 1(u) [n ...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 034. 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 (P242214) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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