Position in chronology
ARET 03, 083
About this tablet
An administrative fragment from the royal archives of Ebla in western Syria, around 2350 BCE — one of thousands of textile-distribution records kept by the palace bureaucracy. It logs cloaks, kilts, and bands issued to named individuals, including an overseer named Garaman and the wife of another man, with quantities running into the hundreds. Records like this reveal Ebla as a major textile power whose fine and dyed cloth circulated as payment, gift, and diplomatic currency across the ancient Near East.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a palace clothing ledger. Under the overseer Garaman, one cloak, some fine garments, and a multicolored kilt were issued to a man called GIŠ-DUG-DU, and an entry follows for Gar-mu. One textile went to the wife of a man whose name is broken away, in connection with the king. After a gap, the accounting resumes: one chest-band and one head-band, fifty-seven fine multicolored kilts, one multicolored kilt dyed red, and a further one hundred sixty-six multicolored kilts. The grand total at the end is lost in the break.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineOverseer: Garaman. 1 'a-da-um cloak, [n] fine (garments), 1 multicolored kilt with n (pins?); (for) GIŠ-DUG-[DU]; Gar-mu. 1 textile [...] (for) the wife of the man Sa-[...]; (of/for) the king. [Break] 1 chest-band, 1 head-band; 60 minus 3 (= 57) multicolored kilts of fine quality; 1 multicolored kilt, red-dyed; 1 hundred sixty-six (= 166) multicolored kilts. Total: [...]
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
_ugula_ ga#-[ra]-ma-an 1(asz@c) 'a3-da-um [n(disz@t)] 1(asz@c@90) _SAL[]_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+n(DISZ@t)|# dar tug2_ GISZ-DUG-[DU] gar3-mu 1(asz@c) _tug2_ [x x] _dam_ _lu2_ sa#-[x x] _en_ [...] 1(asz@c) _nig2-la2 gaba_ 1(asz@c@90) _nig2-la2 sag_ 1(gesz2@c) _la2_ 3(disz@t) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar sa6 tug2_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2 u2-hab2_ 1(asz@c) mi-at 1(gesz2@c) 6(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ SZU-[NIGIN2 ...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 083. 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 (P242268) — 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.