Line	Text original	Text translated
o. 1	5c dug ĝeštin	5 jars of wine,
o. 2	2c dug i3 ši-iq-dim	2 jars of almond oil,
o. 3	5c gir lal3	5 gir-jars of honey,
o. 4	30c še3šer7-gu ĝeš-peš3	30 strings of figs,
o. 5	6c ĝešla-pi-⸢ib?⸣	6 …,
o. 6	⸢x⸣ gurdub2 an.⸢un?⸣	x bins of …,
r. 1	2c gurdub2 da-nu-ru	2 bins of danuru,
r. 2	1c gurdub2 ku6 dar!	1 bin of split fish(?),
r. 3	1c gurdub2 ĝeštin ud	1 bin of raisins,
r. 4	1c gurdub2 gara3-šum	1 bin of leeks,
r. 5	1c gurdub2 ĝeš-kur	1 bin of …:
r. 6	sa-mi-um	Samium,
r. 7	ensi2 gara3-ne.neki-ke4	the lord of Garanene,
r. 8	šu im-mi-us2	has sent this hither.

The copy presented in CDLI stems from a publication of various authors, indicated as „M. Mahmoud Hamed Ahmed M. Abdelmakram Mahmoud Mohamed, Kirkuk Humanities 23/5“; the photo lacks further remarks. Given how unsatisfactory such a presentation of the original publication is, the tablet deserves a complete transliteration and translation here.

The text lists 11 different commodities sent by the city-ruler of Garanene to lowland Mesopotamia. The tablet format and the palaeography suggest a Middle Sargonic date; the tablet therefore seems to represent the earliest reference to almond oil. This dating would favour an attribution of the tablet to the palace-archive of the governor of Adab. The style of the tablet does not allow an attribution to an autonomous city-state, either from the Presargonic or the Post-Akkade period.

The delicacies listed as well as the city and the role of the sender indicate that this was a gift sent in the exchange of goods between city-rulers. The city of Garanene may have been situated in or close to Khuzistan (Sallaberger/Schrakamp 2015: 123; Schrakamp 2015: 237 with note 455), since ships with bitumen from there arrived in Ur III Girsu (RA 19 44 MIO 10543 = CDLI P127718). As can be seen with the introduction of sesame oil (A.1.1.25), the governors of provinces in the empire of Akkade participated in long-distance trade. Obviously, trade was prepared by the exchange of goods between governors below the rank of a king, as this text testifies to. A similar list of „bins, boxes, containers“ (gurdub2) of fish and fruit, and a gir jar is TCBI 1 259 (= CDLI P382511) attributed to Middle Sargonic Adab; there the goods were transported on a boat with honey, a highly prized good imported from Iran: „what was placed on the boat with honey; it was given to Abba“ (niĝ2 ma2 lal3 ĝar-ra-am3, ab-ba an-na-šum2, r.5–6). A similar combination of almond oil with fruits can be seen in ITT 5 6667.

Comments on lines:

o.3: Parallel entry TCBI 1 259 r. 2′: 1 gir l[al3]

o.5-r.1, r.5: These commodities are unknown to me.

r.2: Although the dar sign looks almost like u5, the parallel in TCBI 1 259 o.1 favours an identification as dar.