Position in chronology
ARET 03, 212
About this tablet
A fragment of a garment-disbursement account from the palace archives of Ebla in northern Syria, written around 2350 BCE. It lists single items of clothing — fine textiles, a guzi cloth, multicoloured kilts — issued one by one to named men, each identified by his patron or his job: a dependent of Puzur-ra-malik, an oil-worker, a man called Ḫara-il. Thousands of such tablets were found in the burned palace of Ebla, and together they document how a Bronze Age court dressed and rewarded its personnel. The tablet breaks off before the total, so we see only a slice of a longer distribution.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The opening entry is broken. Then: one fine garment to I-in-ze, who works for Puzur-ra-malik; one guzi cloth and one NI-NI textile to Ma-NI-aš-ba-ri, the oil-man; one good multicoloured kilt to Ḫara-il; and one more good multicoloured kilt to someone whose name is lost where the tablet breaks. The rest of the list is missing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[…]-ar 1 fine (garment) — I-in-ze, the man of Puzur-ra-malik. 1 guzi(-textile), 1 NI-NI textile — Ma-NI-aš-ba-ri, the oil-man (man of sesame oil). 1 fine multicoloured íb-III kilt — Ḫara-il. 1 fine multicoloured íb-III kilt — […] (the remainder is broken away)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
[...]-ar# 1(asz@c) _SAL_ i-in-ze2 _lu2_ PUZUR4-ra-ma-lik 1(asz@c) gu-zi 1(asz@c) TUG2-NI-NI ma-NI-asz2-ba-ri2 _lu2 i3-gesz_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| sa6 dar_ ha-ra-il 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| sa6 dar_ [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 212. 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 (P242404) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.