Position in chronology
ARET 03, 152
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative textile record from the palace archives of Ebla in northern Syria, around 2400 BCE. It logs an issue of garments — cloaks, fine cloths, and colourful kilts — to the courier of a man named Ruzi-malik. Thousands of such tablets survive from Ebla, showing how the palace used standardized sets of clothing as payment and diplomatic gifts, and how even messengers were tracked by name in the bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued to the courier of Ruzi-malik: three double-weight ʾa-da-um cloaks, three aktum cloths, and three fine multicoloured kilts. The rest of the entry is broken away. In modern terms, this is a line from a warehouse ledger — the palace clothing office recording exactly which garments went out, in what quantity and quality, and to whose agent they were handed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineRuzi-malik — his courier (mazalum): 3 ʾa-da-um cloaks of the double type (ʾa-da-um-TÚG-II), 3 aktum-textiles, 3 kilts (íb-III-TÚG), multicoloured, of fine quality [...] (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
ru12-zi-ma-lik ma-za-lum-su3 3(asz@c) 'a3-da-um 2(disz@t) 3(asz@c@90) _aktum_ 3(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar sa6 tug2_ [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 152. 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 (P242344) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.