Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 031
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) in northeastern Syria, written about 2400 BCE. It counts the prized kunga — the donkey–onager hybrids that pulled the battle-carts and wagons of early Syrian and Mesopotamian rulers — sorting them by sex and age: twenty-five young males and forty-two young females, sixty-seven head in all. Two names, U-sar and Bēlī-ZI, appear as the herders or officials responsible. Beydar's archive is one of the few places where the breeding and rationing of these semi-legendary hybrid equids can actually be watched in administrative detail.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Livestock count: 25 young male kunga (hybrid equids) and 42 young females, for a combined total of 67 head. The animals are entered under U-sar and Bēlī-ZI. A closing note gives a figure of nine — probably a date or a period of days — and what appears to be the phrase 'at that time,' though the last line is worn and uncertain. The reverse of the tablet was left blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineYoung male kunga-equids: 25. Young female kunga-equids: 42. (For/of) U-sar; (and) Bēlī-ZI. Total: 67. In nine (10 minus 1) ... at that time(?).
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
ansze kunga2 tur-tur-nita 2(u@c) 5(asz@c) ansze kunga2 munus tur-tur 4(u@c) 2(asz@c) u4-sar be-li2-ZI szu-nigin2# 1(gesz2@c) 7(asz@c) in 1(u@c) la2 1(disz@t) u4-ba?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Der-ez-Zor, Syria (P227210) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.