Position in chronology
ARET 03, 229
About this tablet
A small administrative fragment from the palace archives of Ebla in northern Syria, written around 2400 BCE. It records the issue of textiles and a silver belt — a standard prestige gift-package in Ebla's bureaucracy — to a named individual, with other officials listed, one of them tagged as the 'guarantor' who formally took delivery. Broken as it is, it is a scrap of the everyday paperwork of one of the earliest great archive-keeping states outside Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
From the account of Išda-PA-ma: one fine garment and one silver belt were handed over to Iram-da'ar. A section is then lost. When the text resumes, two more people are named — one whose name ends in -NI, and Mina-NI — with a note that one of them acted as guarantor, formally receiving the goods. A further name, Ugul-zudu, follows before the tablet breaks off, and the rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) Išda-PA-ma: 1 fine (garment), 1 belt of silver (for) Iram-da'ar. [...] (break) [...]-NI, Mina-NI, the guarantor (the one who took delivery). Ugul-zudu. [...] (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
isz-da-PA-ma2 1(asz@c) _SAL_ 1(asz@c) _ib2-la2 ku3:babbar_ ir3-am6-da-ar [...] [...]NI mi-na-NI _szu-du8_ u3-gul-zu-du [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 229. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Idlib, Syria (P242421) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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