Position in chronology
ARET 03, 269
About this tablet
A fragment of an administrative record from the palace archives of Ebla in western Syria, around 2350 BCE. It logs textile and wool disbursements: a traveler named Ara'im, back from the city of Kakmium, receives a cloak, a colored sash, and fine oil, while measured amounts of wool go to the wives of two named men. Thousands of such tablets from Ebla reveal a court that tracked every garment it handed out — and show that women of official households were regular recipients on the palace rolls.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from a palace ledger. Ara'im, who has just come back from Kakmium, is issued one heavy cloak, one multicolored sash, and a portion of first-quality oil. After a gap where the tablet is broken, the record picks up mid-entry with a name ending in '-shum,' then continues: two kin-measures of wool for the wife of Dubi-galu, and another two kin-measures of wool for the wife of Ilba-zikir. The rest of the tablet is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineAra'im, who returned from Kakmium: 1 cloak (gu-dul₃), 1 multicolored ib₂-III sash, first-quality oil. (Break) [...] [...]-šum; 2 kin-measures of wool (for) the wife of Dubi-galu; 2 kin-measures of wool (for) the wife of Ilba-zi[kir]; [...] (remainder 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
a-ra-i-im GI4 mi-nu kak-mi-um 1(asz@c) _gu-dul3_ 1(asz@c) _|IB2+3(DISZ@t)| dar tug2_ _i3-gesz sag#_ [...] [...]-szum 2(asz@c) KIN SIKI _dam_ du-bi2-ga-lu 2(asz@c) KIN SIKI _dam_ il2-ba-zi-[kir] [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — ARET 03, 269. 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 (P242462) — 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.