Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 01
About this tablet
A small, heavily damaged clay tablet from the Early Dynastic period, found at Ur in southern Iraq, probably dating to roughly 2600–2500 BCE. It appears to be a short administrative list, with each entry consisting of a single unit count followed by a category or personal name — likely a personnel register recording dependents, workers, or ration recipients. The repeated sign 'szul' (young man/youth) and the sign SAL (woman/female) suggest the list tracks individuals by age or gender category. Tiny and fragmentary, this tablet is a rare witness to early bureaucratic record-keeping at one of Sumer's greatest cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Each line records a single unit against a name or category. Two entries appear to be for a 'field' or land category and an uncertain term (possibly a place or description of ground). Then come entries for 'u2-ma' (perhaps a fodder allocation or container), two entries for 'szul-szul' and 'szul-la' (a young person, or persons designated 'youth'), one line too broken to read, and a final entry for a female (SAL) followed by an illegible sign. The overall sense is a short tally — probably of people or ration categories — where each person or group is assigned one unit. Several entries are too damaged to recover fully.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[1(N01@f)?] field#? [1(N01@f)?] sud3#-ur [= ?depressed/sunken ground? or personal name element] 1(N01@f) , u2-ma [= fodder/plant + ma?] 1(N01@f) , szul-szul [= youth/young — reduplicated] 1(N01@f)# , x [x] [signs broken/illegible] 1(N01@f) , szul#-la [= of youth/the young one] 1(N01@f) , SAL x [= woman/female + uncertain sign]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[1(N01@f)?] GAN2#? [1(N01@f)?] sud3#?:ur 1(N01@f) , u2-ma 1(N01@f) , szul-szul 1(N01@f)# , x [x] 1(N01@f) , szul#-la 1(N01@f) , SAL x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 01. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P448988) — 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.
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.