BiMes 19, 187, 244 9-02878

About this tablet

A list of men and their fathers from Nerebtum (modern Ishchali) in the Diyala region of Iraq, written in the Old Babylonian period (early second millennium BCE). Lists like this typically served as witness rosters for a legal transaction, or as personnel records. One of the men, Ipiq-šina son of Ilum-abum, is identified by profession as a diviner — a specialist who read the will of the gods in the entrails of sacrificed animals — and his name appears twice, a small glimpse of a recognizable local figure in a provincial town's paperwork.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This tablet is essentially a roster of names, each man identified by his father: Ipiq-[...], son of Ili-wedeku; Imgur-Enlil, son of Enlil-abum; Ipiq-šina, son of Ilum-abum; Sipipum, son of Imgurrum; and again Ipiq-šina, son of Ilum-abum — this time with his job title added: he is a diviner, a professional reader of omens. If the tablet once recorded the transaction these men witnessed, that part has not survived here; what remains is the list of the people who stood by it.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Ipiq-[...], son of Ili-wedeku; Imgur-Enlil, son of Enlil-abum; Ipiq-šina, son of Ilum-abum; Sipipum, son of Imgurrum; Ipiq-šina, the diviner, son of Ilum-abum.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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

i-pi2-iq#-[...]
_dumu_ i3-li2-we-de#-[ku]
im-gur-en-lil2
_dumu_ en-lil2-a-bu-um
i-pi2-iq-szi-na
_dumu_ dingir-a-bu-um
si-pi2-pu-um
_dumu_ im-gur-rum#
i-pi-iq-szi#-na#
_masz2-szu-gid2-gid2_
_dumu_ dingir-a#-bu#-um#

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC)) — BiMes 19, 187, 244 9-02878. 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: HMA 9-02878 (Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA) — from Nerebtum (mod. Iščali) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P248374). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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