Position in chronology
UET 2, 0205a
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Ur, recording quantities of commodities — barley, dairy products, and flour-type rations — distributed or accounted under a temple official called the sanga (chief administrator). The numbers, written in the proto-cuneiform numerical notation system, indicate this is a routine ration or stock ledger. The sanga's mention anchors the document in an institutional, probably temple, setting. The tablet is heavily damaged and fragmentary, so only the first two or three lines are readable with any confidence.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Line 1 records a large quantity (8 large units and 4 small units) of barley, food rations, milk, and flour. Line 2 shows a smaller amount (2 large and 3 small units) allocated in connection with a calf — or perhaps a junior official — under the sanga administrator. Line 3 records another quantity (7 large and 2 small units) associated with a sign reading SI, but the rest of the line is broken away. The final line is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine8(N14) 4(N01): barley, [bread/food-ration], milk, flour, flour 2(N14) 3(N01): calf / [junior official], sanga-administrator 7(N14) 2(N01): SI [broken] ... [...]: [...] [bread/food-ration with sign X], barley(?), [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
8(N14@f) 4(N01@f) , SZE~a |NINDA2x(GISZ.DAR~a)| GA~a ZI~a ZI~a 2(N14@f) 3(N01@f) , AMAR SANGA~a# 7(N14@f) 2(N01@f) , SI [...] [...] , [...] |NINDA2xX|#? SZE3? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0205a. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P005799) — 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.