Position in chronology
JANES 18, 48 23
About this tablet
A small administrative receipt from Nippur, written during the reign of Iddin-Dagan of Isin (early 20th century BCE). It records a modest amount of flour — about five liters — designated as a royal provision, delivered in connection with the temple household of the god Enlil and received by a man named Enum-Suen, who is also identified as the scribe. Such slips were the routine paperwork of temple and palace economies, and this one is dated precisely by month and by a royal year-name commemorating the king's dedication of a throne at the Dubla-maḫ shrine.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Receipt: five sila (about five liters) of flour, charged as the king's provision, delivered to the temple of Enlil. Received by Enum-Suen. Dated to the harvest month, in the year after King Iddin-Dagan had a throne made for the Dubla-maḫ shrine. Signed: Enum-Suen, scribe — the recipient himself kept the record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 sila of ... flour, provision of the king (šuku lugal), delivery (mu-kux) — the house(?) of Enlil. Enum-Suen received (it). Month: Še-sag-ku ("harvest," month XII). Year after (the year) Iddin-Dagan the king fashioned the throne of the Dubla-maḫ ... [...] for him/her. Enum-Suen, the scribe.
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
5(disz) sila3 zi3 x szuku lugal mu-kux(DU) e2? en-lil2-la2 en-um-suen szu ba-an-ti iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu us2-sa i-din-[da]-gan# lugal-e gu-za# dub-la2-mah x [...] mu-na-dim2# en-um-suen dub-sar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — JANES 18, 48 23. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Iddin-Dagan y2 — Year after: Iddin-Dagan became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: UM 55-21-101 (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P200665). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.