Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 079
About this tablet
A small palace account from Tell Beydar — ancient Nabada, a walled town in the Khabur plains of northeastern Syria — written around 2400 BCE. It logs a short trip by the town's ruler (the *en*): he set out, stayed one day, and the administration issued barley for eleven donkeys and the accompanying work-gang, plus a small further outlay booked as a purchase. Beydar's archive is famous precisely for this kind of donkey-and-fodder bookkeeping, which shows how a modest Syrian city fed the transport animals that carried its officials and goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Dated to the new moon of the lord: the ruler travelled and was away one day. Issued for the trip — feed for eleven donkeys and the work-crew: 7 barig 3 ban₂ of barley. Charged separately as a purchase: one barig of (commodity LAK692). The back of the tablet was left blank; only a modern dig number is written on it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. Crescent-day (new moon) of the lord (bēlum), 2. the *en* (ruler) 3. went (out); 4. one day 5. he stayed. 6. Donkeys: 11 — (with) the work-troop: 7. 7 barig 3 ban₂ (of barley). 8. Purchase price (equivalent): 9. LAK692 (commodity): 1 barig. (Reverse uninscribed; the surviving text runs over the obverse face and the edges. The reverse bears only a modern excavation number in ink.)
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
u4-sar be-lim en ba-gin 1(disz@t) u4 al-tusz ansze 1(u@c) 1(asz@c) erin2 7(barig@c) 3(ban2@c) nig2-sa10 LAK692 1(barig@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 079. 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 (P227258) — 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.