Position in chronology
ARET 03, 098
About this tablet
A fragment of a metal account from the palace archives of Ebla in western Syria, written around 2350 BCE. It records amounts of silver and gold weighed by the 'Dilmun shekel' standard, some of it converted from one metal to the other at a fixed exchange rate and some of it formally received by (now lost) individuals. Tablets like this show Ebla operating a sophisticated bullion economy, with silver and gold functioning as money centuries before coinage. The names of the recipients and the purposes of the payments are broken away.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a running ledger of precious metals: fifteen shekels of silver for a purpose now lost; six shekels of gold plus one zi-bar item; a note that a sum was converted at the standard exchange rate; three shekels of gold formally receipted by someone whose name is broken; and finally ten shekels of silver for another lost purpose. All weights use the 'Dilmun shekel,' the international standard of the day. The entries in between and the names of the parties are missing where the tablet is broken.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine15 shekels (Dilmun-standard) of silver [...] 6 shekels (Dilmun-standard) of gold, 1 zi-bar, [...] exchanged (converted at the exchange rate). 3 shekels (Dilmun-standard) of gold [...] received. 10 shekels (Dilmun-standard) of silver [...]
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) 5(asz@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3:babbar_ [...] 6(asz@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3-sig17_ 1(asz@c) zi-bar [...] _szu bala ak_ 3(asz@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3-sig17_ [...] _szu ba4-ti_ 1(u@c) GIN2-DILMUN _ku3:babbar_ [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 098. 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 (P242283) — 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.