Position in chronology
ARET 03, 037
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from the palace archives of Ebla, in modern Syria, written around 2400–2300 BCE. It records batches of luxury textiles — wraps, sashes, and dyed garments — issued to named individuals, including a man called Zibalum, identified as the brother of Igi, and one Ibubu, plus a bulk delivery running into the thousands of pieces. Ebla grew rich on exactly this trade: its archive of thousands of tablets shows textiles moving as gifts, payments, and diplomatic currency across Syria and Mesopotamia, and this fragment is one page of that ledger.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The clerk logs an outgoing consignment of clothing: twelve guzitum cloths, three aktum garments, one more item whose name is broken away, one zara robe dyed reddish-brown, and three matching dyed sashes — all issued to Zibalum, Igi's brother, and to Ibubu. Then a further ten textiles are booked as a delivery credited to RAŠ-GA. At the bottom comes a running total: over a thousand — the exact thousands figure is lost — plus one hundred thirty-nine multicolored sashes on the books.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine12 guzitum-textiles, 3 aktum-garments, [...]-rum, 1 zara-garment of u-hab (reddish-brown dye), 3 triple(-fringed) ib-sashes of u-hab dye: (for) Zibalum, the brother of Igi, (and for) Ibubu. 10 textiles: delivery (mu-DU) of RAŠ-GA. (Total:) [n] thousand, 1 hundred and 39 multicolored ib-sashes (of) cloth.
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
1(u@c) 2(asz@c) gu-zi-dum 3(asz@c) _aktum_ [...]-rum2 1(asz@c) _zara6 u2-hab2_ 3(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| u2-hab2_ zi-ba-lum _szesz_ i-gi i-bu16(NI)-bu 1(u@c) _tug2-tug2_ MU-DU RASZ-GA [n] li-im 1(asz@c) mi-at 3(u@c) 9(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 037. 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 (P242221) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.