Position in chronology
ARET 03, 117
About this tablet
A fragment of a palace account from Ebla in western Syria, written around 2350 BCE. It records the standard three-piece clothing set of the Ebla court — an outer cloak, a tunic, and a colourful kilt — issued to named individuals, including a certain Abu-malik, plus a further set and fifty-one shekels of gold connected with Kish, the great Mesopotamian city with which Ebla maintained diplomatic ties. Tablets like this document the gift-and-textile diplomacy that linked Syria and Mesopotamia in the Early Dynastic period.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a clothing disbursement ledger, broken at the edges. Someone whose name is partly lost received one cloak, one tunic, and one multicoloured fine kilt. Abu-malik, an agent of Iti-NI-lam, is listed next. Then four cloaks, four tunics, and four multicoloured kilts went to a group whose names are lost in the break. An entry connected with the city of Kish follows: one cloak, one tunic, one multicoloured kilt, and fifty-one shekels of gold, plus one more item where the tablet breaks off. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, col. i?) [...]-...-KU-ra: 1 'a3-da-um double cloak, 1 aktum-tunic, 1 [n-fold?] kilt of multicoloured fine cloth [...] (to) Abu-malik, the man of Iti-NI-lam. 4 'a3-da-um double cloaks, 4 aktum-tunics, 4 kilts of multicoloured fine cloth [...] (Break) (for/of) Kish: 1 'a3-da-um double cloak, 1 aktum-tunic, 1 three-fold kilt of multicoloured fine cloth, 51 [shekels] of gold, 1 [...] (text breaks off)
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
[x]-x-KU-ra 1(asz@c) 'a3-da-um 2(disz@t) 1(asz@c@90) _aktum_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+n(DISZ@t)|# dar sa6 tug2_ [...] a-bu3-ma-lik _lu2_ i-ti-NI-lam 4(asz@c) 'a3-da-um 2(disz@t) 4(asz@c@90) _aktum_ 4(asz@c) _ib2 dar sa6 tug2_ [...] KISZ 1(asz@c) 'a3-da-um 2(disz@t) 1(asz@c@90) _aktum_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar sa6 tug2_ 5(u@c) 1(asz@c@90) [GIN2] _ku3#-sig17#_ 1(asz@c) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 117. 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 (P242305) — 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.