Position in chronology
Subartu 02, 122
About this tablet
A small palace account from Tell Beydar — ancient Nabada — in the Syrian Jezirah, written around 2400 BCE. A scribe logged barley handed out in the name of several "lords" (en), one of them apparently the ruler of Nagar (Tell Brak), together with a four-day allocation, three named recipients, a grand total and the month of the entry. Beydar's tablets are among the very oldest cuneiform archives found in Syria, and texts like this one show a small northern city keeping written accounts in the same grain measures and administrative idiom as the great southern Mesopotamian cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley issued in the name of several lords. For the lord of Nagar, covering four days: 4 gur. For the lord Ur-bar: 4 barig 4 ban₂. For the lord Su-lum: [a broken figure], 1 barig 4 ban₂. For the lord AN-ma-LUM: 1 gur 6 barig. Total: 6 gur 3 barig 2 ban₂. Entered in the third month of |LAGAB×SIG₇|. One quantity on the third line is lost to damage, so the entries no longer add up cleanly to the stated total.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) The lord (en) of Nagar(?), in 4 days: 4 gur (of barley). The lord — Ur-bar: 4 barig 4 ban₂. The lord — [Su]-lum: [n gur] 1 barig 4 ban₂. (Reverse) The lord — AN-ma-LUM: 1 gur 6 barig. (Total:) 6 gur 3 barig 2 ban₂. Month-record: third (month of) |LAGAB×SIG₇|.
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
en na-gar3 in# 4(disz@t) u4# 4(asz@c)# gur en ur-bar 4(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) en# [su]-lum# [n] 1(barig@c) 4(ban2@c) en AN-ma-LUM 1(asz@c) gur 6(barig@c) 6(asz@c) gur 3(barig@c) 2(ban2@c) iti-sar esz5-|LAGABxSIG7|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ebla (ca. 2350-2250 BC)) — Subartu 02, 122. 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 (P227301) — 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.