Position in chronology
UET 2, 0047
About this tablet
This tiny tablet from Ur, dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2900–2350 BCE), is a proto-cuneiform administrative record — one of the earliest forms of writing in human history. It lists small quantities of commodities or personnel categories, each preceded by a numeral, in the terse notation typical of temple or palace accounting from ancient Sumer. The entries include references to goats, a storehouse, a wooden object, a figurine or statue, a scribe or tablet, and a bird, suggesting a mixed inventory or disbursement record. Tablets like this are the direct ancestors of all later cuneiform bookkeeping, and their signs stand at the threshold between pictographic notation and true writing.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record lists five entries with quantities: three units associated with goats, a storehouse, water, and two further unidentified markers; two units of fuel or fire-related material, timber, a senior official or supervisor, something large, and a blade; two units of a statue or figurine, another fire-related sign, a supervisor, and a dairy product; one individual identified as a scribe or tablet-keeper; and two units connected with a solar or day sign and a bird. Much of the precise meaning of the compound signs is lost to us, but the overall shape is a short inventory — goods and people, counted and filed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 (units) — goat(s), storehouse, water(?), MUD, NUN 2 (units) — NE, wood/timber, elder/supervisor, large, dagger/blade 2 (units) — statue/figurine, NE, elder/supervisor, GA'AR 1 (unit) — man, tablet/scribe 2 (units) — NI, day/sun, bird
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(N01@f) , MASZ2 E2~a A MUD NUN~a 2(N01@f) , NE~a GISZ~v PAP~a GAL~a GIR2~a 2(N01@f) , ALAN~a NE~a PAP~a GA'AR~b1? 1(N01@f) , LU2 DUB~a 2(N01@f) , NI~b U4 MUSZEN
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0047. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005620) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.
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.