Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 143
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic ledger tablet from Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), roughly 2400 BCE. It records a single disbursement of brewing and milling supplies — coarse barley flour, beer-bread, malt and groats — handed over to an official called simply "the elder," with a man named Ur-[...] named as the responsible commissioner, the institution É-dumu, and the month Duku. The ingredient list is essentially a beer-and-bread kit: bappir and malt are the two halves of Sumerian brewing, so this is the raw material for a household or temple's rations and drink for one month.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Issued: one gur of barley flour, plus two barig each of beer-bread, malt and milled groats. The goods went to the elder, and the transfer is confirmed as delivered to him. Ur-[...] — the rest of his name is broken away — signed off on it as the supervising officer. Filed under the É-dumu household, in the month of Duku. In short, a month's worth of baking and brewing stock, booked out with the name of the official who authorized it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 gur of dabin-flour[,] 2 barig of beer-bread (bappir), 2 barig of malt, 2 barig of groats — (for) the elder (ab-ba); it was given to him. Ur-[...] is its commissioner (maškim). É-dumu ("house of the children"). Month: Duku (du6-ku3).
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(asz@c) dabin gur# 2(barig@c) bappir 2(barig@c) munu4 2(barig@c) nig2-ar3-ra ab-ba an-na-szum2 ur-[...] maszkim-bi e2-dumu iti du6-ku3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CUSAS 35, 143. 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: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252765) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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