Position in chronology
JANES 18, 45 10
About this tablet
A small Old Babylonian ration tablet from Nippur, dated to the reign of Šu-ilišu, second king of Isin (early 20th century BCE). It records six sila of bread — roughly six liters — issued as a food allowance to a group of workers or dependents on the eleventh day of the month of Abu. The middle of the tablet is broken, so the recipients' names and the receiving official are lost, but the year-name at the end survives: the year Šu-ilišu built the fortification wall named Rīm-Ištar. Documents like this are how modern historians reconstruct the chronology of the Isin dynasty, since Babylonian years were named after notable royal deeds rather than numbered.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Six sila of bread (about six liters), issued from the temple household as the food allowance for a named group of workers. Dated the 11th day of the month of Abu; the next lines, which would have given the recipients and the person who took delivery, are broken away, leaving only what looks like the word 'received.' The tablet closes with the year formula: the year King Šu-ilišu built the wall named Rīm-Ištar.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 sila of bread — of/for the AB[…] (temple? household?), food allotment (šuku) of the [...]-people; month: NE.[NE]-gar (Abu), day 11, [...] [...] received(?) [...] Year: Šu-ilišu the king built the wall (called) Rīm-Ištar.
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
6(disz) sila3 ninda AB# szuku x x x-ne iti NE-[NE]-gar# u4 1(u) 1(disz) [...] [...] szu [...] mu szu-i3-li2-szu lugal-e bad3 ri-im-esz18-dar mu-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1900 BC)) — JANES 18, 45 10. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-iliszu y1 — Šu-iliszu became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: OIM A29994 (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA) — from Nippur (mod. Nuffar) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P200675). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.