Position in chronology
ARET 03, 133
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative textile ledger from the palace archives of Ebla in northern Syria, written around 2350 BCE. The palace bookkeepers recorded issues of garments — tunics, fine cloth, and multicoloured kilts — to named individuals, each identified by the man or town he belonged to. One recipient is a brother of Ibrium, the powerful vizier who effectively ran the Eblaite state, giving this scrap of accounting a direct link to the highest circles of the court.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a clothing distribution record. Some number of kilts went to Dubišum, an agent of a place whose name is partly broken, attached to the palace administration. A quantity of NI-NI textiles went to a brother of Ibrium, the vizier. Then one gu-dul tunic, one fine garment, and one multicoloured triple-band kilt were issued to Zikirra-il, the man of Darmaʾa. 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) [n] kilts (ÍB+n-TÚG), (for) Dubišum, the man of ...da-[x]-na, (of) the palace administration (SA.ZAx). [x] NI-NI textiles [...] (for) the brother of Ibrium. 1 gu-dul₃ tunic, 1 fine garment, 1 multicoloured triple(-band) kilt: (for) Zikirra-il, the man of Darmaʾa [(...)] [... (the remainder is 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
[n] _|IB2+n(DISZ@t)|#_ [du]-bi2#-szum# _lu2#_ x-da-[x]-na [sa]-zax(LAK384) [x] TUG2#-NI-NI [...] _szesz_ ib-ri2-um 1(asz@c) _gu-dul3_ 1(asz@c) _SAL_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ zi-kir-ra-il _lu2_ dar-ma-a [(x)] [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 133. 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 (P242321) — 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.