Position in chronology
ARET 03, 259
About this tablet
An administrative fragment from the great palace archive of Ebla in northern Syria, written around 2350 BCE. It records the delivery of fine multicoloured kilts to a man named Ullu, acting as someone's agent, on the occasion of an official's return from a trade or diplomatic journey, and mentions barley in connection with Kakmium, a city-state with which Ebla dealt constantly. Thousands of such textile-distribution records survive; together they map Ebla's commercial and political network across Syria and Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a palace accounting entry. A quantity of multicoloured kilts — the number is lost in the break — went to Ullu, who was acting as an agent, as part of a delivery connected with a man whose name is only partly preserved. The occasion is noted: the day he got back from an official journey. A further entry concerns an allotment of barley involving the city of Kakmium. The beginning and end of the record are broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[... n] multicoloured íb-kilt(s) (of n-quality): Ullu, his agent — (this is the) delivery of [...]-nu-[...] [...]-um, on the day he arrived, from the journey. Dilmun-allotment(?) of barley: Kakmi[um(?)] [... (rest 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
[...] _|IB2+n(DISZ@t)|# dar tug2_ ul-lu _maszkim_-su3 _mu#-DU_ [x]-nu#-[...] [...]-um in _u4_ _i3-ti_ mi-nu _nig2-kas4_ DILMUN-_kur6_ SZE kak#-mi#-[um?] [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 259. 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 (P242452) — 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.