Position in chronology
MRAH O.5012
About this tablet
A legal-administrative record from Early Dynastic Sumer, around 2500 BCE, most likely connected with the city of Adab. It documents a shipment of barley belonging to one household being loaded onto a named man's boat, with exact quantities, the men responsible, a double month-and-day date, and a closing list of witnesses. This is early paperwork with legal force: the witness clause shows that even a routine grain transfer needed to be attestable in case of later dispute. Tablets like this are among our best windows into how third-millennium Mesopotamians moved goods by river and held people accountable for them.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Twenty-four measures of barley (the entry partly broken) for Al-mu, twenty-four for Uri, and ten for Girini — these men belong to the fortress crew. The barley comes from the household of Ša-lu, and it was loaded onto Lugal-itida's boat. The transaction spans the months of Duku and Nig-kiri, when the grain was handed over to him; nine days into the month, the deal was finalized. The men of Adab named here served as witnesses to the whole affair.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 24 (measures of) [barley ...] Al-mu(?); 24: Uri; 10: Girini — they are the men of the fortress. It is barley of the household of Ša-lu. Onto the boat of Lugal-itida it was loaded. It is the month of Duku. (In) the month of Nig-kiri it was given to him. When 9 days of the month had passed, the men of Adab(?) are its witnesses.
Our translation engine — Fable 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
2(u@c) 4(asz@c) [sze ...] al-mu#? 2(u@c) 4(asz@c) urix(LAK526) 1(u@c) giri3-ni lu2 bad3#?-me sze e2 sza3-lu2-kam ma2 lugal-iti-da an-si iti du6-ku3-kam iti nig2-kiri6-kam an-na-szum2 iti# u4 9(disz@t) zal-la adab!-be2 lu2 ki-inim-ma-bi-me
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC)) — MRAH O.5012. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Belgium (P452986) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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