Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 069
About this tablet
A small, badly broken clay tablet from Tell Beydar (ancient Nabada) in northeastern Syria, written about 2350 BCE. It is an administrative account of barley measured out in barig and ban units, listing personal names — some of them clearly Semitic — followed by a note that the issue covers 'the land' and a rate of 2 barig 4 ban over three days. The Beydar archive is one of the very few Early Dynastic administrative collections from northern Syria, and its scribes wrote Sumerian-style bookkeeping mixed with Semitic words such as 'wa' (and) and 'in' (in), a snapshot of a bilingual northern chancery.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The top of the tablet is lost; only stray signs survive from the first several lines. What can still be read is a barley account: a man whose name begins Ni-wa-rum receives 9 barig; then, linked by 'and', come further entries — a place or location, a name written ib-ba-ru-ša-nu, another written AN-ma-LUM, and a third ending in -lum, now broken. The issue is said to be 'in the land', and the account closes with a rate: 2 barig 4 ban over three days.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, beginning broken) [...] DI [...] ... [...] PI [... (line lost)] [...] AN-ma [... (line lost)] NI(?)-wa-rum: 9 barig (of barley), and the place(?), and ib-ba-ru-ša-nu, AN-ma-LUM, [......]-lum, in the land (kalam). In 3 days: 2 barig 4 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
[...] DI# [...] x [...] PI# [...] [x] AN-ma# [...] NI#?-wa-rum2 9(barig@c) wa ki u3 ib-ba-ru-sza-nu AN#-ma#-LUM# [x x]-lum in kalam in 3(disz@t) u4 2(barig@c) 4(ban2@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 069. 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 (P227248) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.