Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 269
About this tablet
A compact personnel roster from Early Dynastic Adab (modern Bismaya, southern Iraq), dated roughly 2500–2350 BCE. Four individuals are counted one by one — a fisherman, a cupbearer, a farmer, and a fourth whose name has broken away — each accompanied by a patronym or occupational title. Three additional names close the document without quantity markers, almost certainly as the supervising or witnessing officials who guaranteed the record. The presence of what appears to be an Akkadian personal name (Be-li2-du10, 'My lord is good') alongside Sumerian theophoric names quietly reflects the bilingual world of Early Dynastic southern Babylonia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four people are tallied here, each counted as one: Ur-E2, son of Lugalsisa, working as a fisherman; Enlil-la, serving as a cupbearer; Du-du, associated with Ur-lu2 as a farmer; and Ur-Nin-[the name breaks off]. Three more individuals close the tablet — Ur-E2-Igi-Nim, An-ne-šum2, and Be-li2-du10 — named without a count, most likely as the officials who oversaw or witnessed the record. A small but precise document of who did what, endorsed by those responsible for it.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (person): Ur-E2, [son of] Lugalsisa, fisherman; 1 (person): Enlil-la, cupbearer; 1 (person): Du-du; Ur-lu2, farmer; 1 (person): Ur-Nin-[...], Ur-E2-Igi-Nim; An-ne-šum2; Be-li2-du10.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(asz@c) ur-e2 lugal-si-sa2# szu-ku6# 1(asz@c) en-lil2-la2 sagi# 1(asz@c) du-du ur-lu2 engar# 1(asz@c) ur-nin-[x] ur-e2-igi-nim an-ne-szum2 be-li2-du10
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIa (ca. 2600-2500 BC) ?) — CUSAS 35, 269. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P254032) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.