Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 044
About this tablet
A grain account from Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) in the Khabur plains of northeastern Syria, written around 2400 BCE — part of one of the oldest cuneiform archives ever found in Syria. A palace scribe lists barley issued out in small lots: to a household, to the city gate, as fodder for the donkeys of the sheepfold, for ten doves, and to named individuals, then closes with a grand total of 106 gur and change. What makes it striking is the language mix: the account is written with Sumerian signs, but the scribe counts the hundred with the Semitic word mi-at, exactly as a speaker of an early Semitic dialect of northern Syria would say it.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A ledger of grain issued. The opening entries are broken, but what survives reads: an amount in gur plus 3 barig; 3 barig of še-RU grain; 1 gur 1 barig received by the É-eš household; another 1 gur 1 barig received at the gate; 1 gur 3 barig for the donkeys of the sheepfold; ten doves, allotted 1 gur 3 barig 3 ban; one gur or more to Su-lim; and a further entry for Dab-ḫirtum, now too damaged to read. The account closes with the grand total: 106 gur, 3 barig, 2 ban of goods.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[The lu-geš-DU (personnel)] [...] [goods: x] gur, 3 barig [x] še-RU grain: 3 barig received — the É-eš house: 1 gur 1 barig [received —] the gate: [1] gur 1 barig donkeys of the sheepfold: 1 gur, 3 barig [x] doves: 10 — 1 gur, 3 barig, 3 ban Su-li-[im]: 1 [gur x] Dab-[ḫirtum ...] Grand total: goods — one hundred and 6 gur, 3 barig, 2 ban.
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
[lu2-gesz-DU] [...] [nig2 x] gur# 3(barig@c)#? [x] sze#-RU# 3(barig@c) szu# e2-esz2 1(asz@c) 1(barig@c) [szu] ka2# [1(asz@c)] 1(barig@c) ansze# amasz 1(asz@c) 3(barig@c)#? [x] tu 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) gur 3(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) su-li-[im] 1(asz@c) [x] dab6-[hir-tum x x] szu-nigin2 nig2 1(asz@c) mi-at 6(asz@c) gur 3(barig@c) 2(ban2@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 044. 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 (P227223) — 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.