Position in chronology
JANES 18, 49 25
About this tablet
A small Old Babylonian receipt from Nippur, written during the reign of Iddin-Dagan of Isin (early second millennium BCE). It records seven sheep, prepared as cooked meat, supplied as the standing daily offering for Enlil and his consort Ninlil — the chief gods of Nippur — and transferred to the temple's meat-processing house, with the transaction authenticated by the seal of the šatammu, the temple's administrative overseers. Texts like this show the industrial scale and bureaucratic precision of feeding the gods: every animal, every day, logged and countersigned.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Seven sheep, cooked, delivered as part of the standing offering allotment for Enlil and Ninlil. The meat went to the temple's butchery, transferred out of the É-gissu store, and the transaction was certified under the seal of the temple administrators. Dated to the 26th day of the ninth month, in the year Iddin-Dagan installed the lumaḫ-priest of Nin-Isina.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine7 sheep, cooked (boiled), regular offerings (sá-du₁₁) of Enlil and Ninlil. Delivery, for the meat-house (é-uzu), from the É-gissu; sealed tablet of the šatammu-officials. Month: Gan-gan-è (month IX), day 26, year: Iddin-Dagan the king elevated (installed) the lumaḫ-priest of Nin-Isina.
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
7(disz) udu al-sze6# sa2-du11 en-lil2 u3# nin#-lil2 mu-kux(DU) e2-uzu-sze3 ki e2-gissu-ta kiszib3 sza3?-tam-e-ne iti gan-gan-e3 u4 2(u) 6(disz)-kam? mu i-din-da-gan lugal-e lu2-mah nin-isin2?-na mu-un-il2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — JANES 18, 49 25. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Iddin-Dagan y1 — Iddin-Dagan became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: OIM A29997 (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P200686). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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