Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 075
About this tablet
A small round clay tablet from Tell Beydar in northeastern Syria (ancient Nabada), written about 2400 BCE, when the town was a modest administrative center in the orbit of Nagar. It is a ration list: a scribe recorded barley issued to five men — two of them for time spent travelling or on duty (three journeys, seven days), the others in flat allotments — and then added the sum on the back. The arithmetic works out exactly, which incidentally confirms that here six ban made one barig. Documents like this are how we know that Syrian towns of the third millennium ran their households on the same measured, checkable bookkeeping as the Sumerian south.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Accounting for the month of Sar-belim. Il-e-išar drew 2 barig 2 ban of grain to cover three trips; Su-a-bir drew the same amount for seven days of service. Da-…, In-gi-mu, and URI-APIN received 4 ban, 2 ban, and 2 ban respectively. On the back the scribe totals it up: 6 barig in all.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineMonth: Sar of the lord (bēlum). Il-e-išar: for 3 journeys — 2 barig 2 ban; Su-a-bir: for 7 days — 2 barig 2 ban; Da-|UŠxKUR| — 4 ban; In-gi-mu — 2 ban; URI-APIN — 2 ban. (reverse) Total: 6 barig.
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
iti-sar be-lim il2-e-i-szar in 3(disz@t) kaskal 2(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) su-a-bir5 in 7(disz@t) u4 2(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) da-|USZxKUR| 4(ban2@c) in-gi-mu 2(ban2) URI-APIN 2(ban2@c) szu#-nigin2 6(barig@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 075. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Der-ez-Zor, Syria (P227254) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.