Position in chronology
UET 2, 0191
About this tablet
This is a small, fragmentary Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Ur — one of the oldest cities in the world, in what is now southern Iraq — dating to roughly 2900–2600 BCE. It records quantities of goods, commodities, or labor allocations using the earliest numerical notation, before Sumerian writing had fully matured. The surviving lines mention a storehouse, a female worker or female category, and various counted items, but severe damage prevents reconstruction of the complete transaction. It belongs to the type of bookkeeping record that was the backbone of the Sumerian temple economy: tiny clay tablets tracking who received what, and whether it was delivered.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives of this tablet is a tally of goods or labor categories, each assigned a quantity: three units of something involving a knife or dagger, a female worker, and a 'large' designation; three units linked to a collector and a substance labeled MUD; three units tied to a horn and water; three units of a status or title category with water; three units involving a plant commodity and a digging tool; and — notably — an entry for a storehouse or institutional building where a delivery was NOT completed. Several lines are too broken to read. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] land (KALAM) [...] 3 (units) , dagger (GIR2) woman (SAL) large (GAL) 1+3 (units) , shearer/collector (UR4) blood/mud (MUD) 1+3 (units) , horn (SI) water (A) [...] , [...] X 1+3 (units) , status/title (NAM2) water (A) 1+3 (units) , garlic/plant (SUM) digging-tool (TUN3) , horn (SI) [commodity] (BU) branch/overseer (PA) vessel/boat (MA) 1+3 (units) , house/storehouse (E2) fire/fuel (NE) not (NU) delivered (DU) [...] , [...] 1 (unit) , [...] 1 (unit) [...] , [...] , X [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] KALAM~a# [...] 3(N01@f) , GIR2~a SAL GAL~a 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , UR4~a MUD 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , SI A [...] , [...] X 1(N22) 3(N01@f) , NAM2 A 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , SUM~b TUN3~a , SI BU~a PA~a MA 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , E2~a NE~a NU DU [...] , [...] 1(N22@f)# , [...] 1(N22@f) [...] , [...] , X [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0191. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005779) — 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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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.