Position in chronology
CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 191
About this tablet
This is a fragment of an Early Dynastic lexical (word) list, one of many nearly identical school copies of a standard list of official titles and professions used to train scribes at cities like Ur, Fara, and Abu Salabikh around 2600–2500 BCE. Rather than recording a real transaction, it strings together institutional titles — vizier, garment overseers, temple administrators — the vocabulary a young scribe was expected to memorize by heart. Its interest lies not in any single event it records but in what it shows about how literacy itself was built, sign by sign, title by title, in the earliest cities of Sumer.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken tablet is a scribal word-list, not a real record of a transaction — think of it as a vocabulary worksheet. It lists a string of official titles and job categories one after another: something involving a measure or vessel, a lordly or high-status designation, then 'linen' paired with 'vizier,' two entries about garment-officials or overseers, then two lines naming a 'great' officeholder tied to obscure signs, two temple-administrator (sanga) titles, and finally a partly broken sign followed by what may be the word for 'spouse.' Much of the tablet is missing or unreadable, and the exact meaning of several individual signs is genuinely unclear even to specialists — this is a training list of titles, not a narrative or contract.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 1(N58).BAD~a lord(?): IB~a (title/category) [...] linen(-garment): vizier great garment-official: overseer garment: overseer [...] great one of the throne(?) great one of the DI-sign(-office) temple-administrator of the X(-office) temple-administrator of the X(-office) ZATU725(?) spouse(?)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Engine notes
read from photo8 uncertain terms ↓
- GARA2~a — Conventionally interpreted as a dairy product (cream, ghee, or curd); exact referent disputed. Some readings prefer 'ghee', others 'cream-cheese'.
- |ZATU737xDI| — A composite sign not yet assigned a standard reading; its meaning in this administrative context is unclear.
- |ZATU737xX| — The internal sign is illegible or unidentified in the transliteration; cannot verify from photo.
- ZATU725#? — Queried reading; sign may be damaged or ambiguous. ZATU725 is an archaic sign of uncertain value.
- DAM#? — Queried; could mean 'spouse/wife' or be part of a compound title. Context within a titles list makes 'spouse (of an official)' plausible but not certain.
- SUKKAL — Rendered 'vizier' by convention; literally a high administrative official, sometimes translated 'minister' or 'envoy' in later periods.
- SANGA~a — Rendered 'temple administrator'; the archaic sign form (~a variant) marks this as Early Dynastic script stage.
- 1(N58).BAD~a — Numerical/sign combination at the start of a damaged line; N58 is a numerical notation sign. Context too broken to interpret meaningfully.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows seven small, roughly ovoid clay objects, dark in colour (fired or heavily patinated). Two in the lower portion of the image bear the ink accession mark 'USB40' (likely a field or museum lot number), and one at the top appears to bear '37-7-5' or similar, consistent with the University of Pennsylvania museum catalogue number UM 37-07-005. The two lower objects show the clearest cuneiform impressions: multiple columns of densely packed wedge clusters are visible, consistent with a lexical list format. The central middle object also shows clear wedge groups. The upper-left and upper-right objects appear blank or too eroded on their visible faces to read signs. Individual sign identification from the photo is difficult at this resolution and in this lighting — the wedge impressions are real and present, but I cannot reliably discriminate one sign from another to cross-check the transliteration sign by sign. The transliteration belongs to the Early Dynastic lexical corpus, specifically the ED Lu₂ A list or a closely related titles-and-professions list; the sequence linen–vizier / great-one–dairy-product / garment–dairy-product is well-attested in parallel exemplars from Ur and Fara. The damaged and queried readings (SANGA~a, ZATU725, DAM) cannot be verified from the photo.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3492 in / 1013 out tokens
Transliteration
[...] |1(N58).BAD~a|# EN~a# IB~a [...] GADA~a SUKKAL GAL~a GARA2~a TUG2~a GARA2~a [...] GAL~a GISZGAL GAL~a |ZATU737xDI| SANGA~a |ZATU737xX| SANGA~a# |ZATU737xX|# ZATU725#? DAM#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000002, ex. 191. 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 (P000723) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
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.