Position in chronology
ARET 03, 067
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative textile account from the palace archives of Ebla in western Syria, written around 2400–2300 BCE. It tallies hundreds of garments — cloaks, wraps, and linen mantles — some connected with the city of Mari on the Euphrates, Ebla's great commercial rival and partner. Records like this one, from the famous Ebla archive, document a textile industry operating at remarkable scale and reveal the trade networks linking Syrian cities long before most of the world was literate.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from a palace inventory of clothing. The opening lines are broken, but the readable part counts: an unknown number of 'a-da-um cloaks and dul-garments associated with Mari; 175 aktum wraps; 42 linen gu-dul mantles plus a first-quality 'a-da-um cloak; one fine zara robe dyed with the u-hab plant; two TUG2-NI-NI textiles; and 73 items of a type now lost in the break. The rest of the tablet is missing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(beginning broken) [... 'a]-da-um cloaks, dul-garments of Mari. 175 aktum-textiles. 42 gu-dul cloaks of linen; 'a-da-um cloak of type 1. 1 zara-garment (dyed) with u-hab plant; 2 TUG2-NI-NI textiles. 73 [... (commodity lost)]. (remainder 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
[... 'a3]-da#-um#[] DUL3 ma-ri2 1(asz@c) mi-at 1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) _aktum_ 4(u@c) 2(asz@c) _gu-dul3 gada_ 'a3-da-um 1(disz@t) 1(asz@c) _zara6 u2-hab2_ 2(asz@c) TUG2-NI-NI 1(gesz2@c) 1(u@c) 3(asz@c) [n ...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 067. 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 (P242252) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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