Position in chronology
UET 2, 0010
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the Early Dynastic city of Ur, now held in Philadelphia, recording a short list of persons or ration-recipients, each apparently counted in units of one. Several entries attach institutional titles — 'herald of the mother' and what may be a cattle-stall official — alongside animals such as calves and birds. The surface is heavily worn and several signs cannot be read with confidence, making this one of those frustrating but historically revealing fragments that show the machinery of early Mesopotamian record-keeping even when the details have been lost. Its early date (roughly 2700–2500 BCE) places it among the formative documents of Sumerian bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with two or three entries too damaged to read, then lists what appears to be a ration record or personnel roster: a herald attached to a maternal institution, an entry under the heading 'horn' or 'fill,' and then a series of single individuals — a man or calf, someone linked to a vessel or opening, several persons associated with a cattle-stall, at least one person involved in some action under a divine or celestial marker, and someone connected with calves and birds. The list closes with two entries for the cattle-stall paired with what may be a mace or ritual weapon. The last line is partly broken. Several entries in the middle are too damaged to identify.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] [...] , ration(?)‑tablet [...] , herald (of the) mother [...] , horn / [fill(?)] 1 , man / calf 1 , eye / vessel‑opening 1 , cattle‑stall + [X] [X] 1 , [X] [X] 1 , AK (work/make?) + AN [...] 1 , [X] + calf + bird 1 , herald (of the) mother , cattle‑stall + mace/weapon , cattle‑stall + mace/weapon [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] , PAD~a#? [...] , NIMGIR AMA~b [...] , SI# 1(N01@f) , LU2# AMAR 1(N01@f) , IGI BUR~a 1(N01@f) , AB~a X X 1(N01@f) , X X 1(N01@f) , AK~a#? AN [...] 1(N01@f) , X AMAR MUSZEN#? 1(N01@f) , NIMGIR# AMA~b# , AB~a SZITA~c , AB~a SZITA~c#? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0010. 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 (P005584) — 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.
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.