Position in chronology
OB Contracts, pl. G7 no. 69
About this tablet
A fragmentary legal contract from Old Babylonian Nippur, in southern Iraq, roughly 1900–1700 BCE. It concerns the 'bala' — a rotational term of temple office or prebend service — held in both Nippur and Isin, and records the standard legal safeguards: one party swears by the name of the king not to contest the arrangement, and named witnesses, including a requisition official and a merchant, attest the deal. Such tablets show how rights to lucrative temple offices circulated like property among Nippur's priestly families.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The opening lines are damaged, but the readable text records an agreement involving a man whose name begins with 'Enlil-,' concerning service in Nippur and in Isin — specifically the rotational term of temple duty (the bala) performed by one Ali-[...]. The obligated party promises not to raise any future claim about it and swears an oath by the name of the king to seal that promise. The witnesses follow: Nūr-iya, an official in charge of requisitions, and a merchant whose name ends in '-ummuhu,' son of a man whose name is lost. The final line is too broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) ... [...] (illegible) Enlil-...-[...] (personal name) in Nippur [...] and Isin [...] the bala-service (rotational duty) performed, Ali-[...] he shall not raise a claim [...] he sw[ore] by the name of the king. [Before] Nūr-iya, the nigdaba (requisition) official, ... [...] [Before] ...-ummuhu, the merchant, son of [...] [...] ... (traces; remainder lost)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
x x [...] en-lil2#-x-[...] sza3 nibru-[...] u3 i3-si-in-[...] bala gub-ba a-li2-[...] inim nu-um-ga2-ga2-[...] mu lugal-bi in-[pa3 ...] [igi] nu-ur2-ia lu2 nig2-dab5-ba x [...] [igi] x-um-mu-hu dam-gar3 dumu# [...] [...] x x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — OB Contracts, pl. G7 no. 69. 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: N 1627 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P276752). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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