Translation was an important practice to the Old Babylonian scribe. It allowed a scribe to move between mathematical cultures, and it allowed the scribe to cross between systems of expression in a single culture. The word “translate” is used in this context to denote a change in numerical expression, not to be mistaken for a change in numerical or measurement value, nor to be understood as a modern translation of an exclusively verbal text. What could constitute this change in representations? Were there rules associated with numeric translation? Why did it need to occur? This article will explore these questions by focusing on three examples of translation witnessed in Old Babylonian texts. First, it will focus on the translation of numbers between a base sixty system, common to the Old Babylonian southern Mesopotamia, and base hundred, common to northern Old Babylonian Mesopotamia. Second, the very shape of numbers on a text will help delimit translation of numbers from a mathematical environment to an economic environment. Finally, these same base sixty numbers were routinely translated from mathematical thought directly to measurement systems, which meant to express values using metrological tables of transformation memorized in the early elementary phase of their schooling. In this way, it will be seen what happens when a scribe translated values between systems, between different media, including material objects, and how they coped with translations before any rules to define translation came into existence.
