Position in chronology
ARET 03, 091 + unp. frag.
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative account from the royal palace of Ebla in northern Syria, around 2350 BCE. It records outlays of silver — weighed by the 'Dilmun shekel' standard — including a payment reckoned as the price of twelve linen garments, and it names Ibrium, the famous vizier who effectively ran the Ebla state, as well as the foreign city of Kakmium, one of Ebla's trading partners. Tablets like this, from the great archive found at Tell Mardikh, are our main window onto the earliest well-documented economy of Syria.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger of silver payments, though its beginning is lost. One entry lists a quantity of silver in Dilmun-standard shekels together with a decorated plaque, received from (or charged to) the vizier Ibrium; another concerns the city of Kakmium. A further entry records 1 mina and 12 shekels of silver as the purchase price of twelve linen garments. Then come three names on the payroll side of the account — a man whose name is partly broken, Dahir-malik, and Mašardum — followed by another sum of 13 shekels of silver. The rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, fragmentary) [...] shekels (Dilmun standard) of silver, 1 ŠIR-za plaque — (for) a tablet(?) — from (KI) Ibrium; [...] (for the city of) [Kak]mium. 1 mina and 12 shekels (Dilmun standard) of silver: the price of 12 linen garments [...] [...]-radum, Dahir-malik, Mašardum. 13 shekels (Dilmun standard) of silver [...] (remainder broken)
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
[...] GIN2#-DILMUN _ku3:babbar_ 1(asz@c) SZIR-_za dub_ KI ib-ri2-um [...] [kak]-mi#-um 1(asz@c) _ma-na_ 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3:babbar_ _nig2-sa10_ 1(u@c) 2(asz@c) _gada_ [...] [...]-ra-dum da-hi-ir-ma-lik masz-ar-dum 1(u@c) 3(asz@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3:babbar_ [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 091 + unp. frag.. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Idlib, Syria (P242276) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.