Position in chronology
UET 2, 0028
About this tablet
An administrative tally tablet from Ur, dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2900–2350 BCE), recording small quantities — mostly one or two units each — against a series of commodity or personnel categories, several of which remain semantically opaque due to the archaic sign forms and surface damage. The tablet belongs to the everyday paperwork of Ur's temple or palace economy: a scribe keeping careful count of allocations or receipts within an institutional household. Its chief historical interest lies in its age and provenance — it is among the earliest written records from one of the world's first cities, produced at a time when the cuneiform script was still being regularized. The last several entries are partially or wholly lost to physical damage.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists, row by row, small quantities of various goods and institutional categories. It opens with three choice vessels, followed by a field or storage entry without its own count. Then come single items tagged with designations that no longer translate cleanly: a category marked with a divine sign, something involving a container and roe or seed, a unit of mixed wood and reed. Further down, two 'great heads' or senior personnel appear, then a single overseer-like entry pairing a great title with additional signs. Two more items are logged against a day-count and an unclear category marker. The final entries collapse into damage: one large item with illegible qualifiers, one disbursement or plant entry, and a last line entirely lost. What survives is a fragment of routine accounting at ancient Ur — tallies made and clay pressed four thousand years ago.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 — choice vessel(s); — [field/storage] [container] 1 — [made/produced(?)] [divine-marker(?)] [MUSZ3-category] 1 — [UR(?)] [vessel/boat(?)] [egg/seed/roe] 1 — mixed wood(-and-)reed 2 — large head(s)(?), [...] [broken] 1 — head(?) great(?), MU, GU2 2 — [day/sun(?)] NU, [ME-category(?)] 1 — large [...] NI2 [...] [broken] 1 — BU [...] [broken] [...] [broken]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo14 uncertain terms ↓
- N01@f — Archaic numerical notation — tally strokes; the '@f' variant indicates a specific formal shape of the N01 number sign in the Ur corpus.
- KAL~b2 — Sign KAL variant b2; conventionally 'strong' or a type of vessel/strong vessel (DUG following suggests jar determinative context).
- DUG~a — Vessel/jar; variant DUG~a. Could be a jar determinative or lexical entry for 'pot/jar'.
- GAN~d# — Field or garden; '#' indicates damaged/uncertain reading by editor. Could also be read as a different sign.
- AMA~b — Mother; variant b of the AMA sign. Standard reading 'mother' but in a lexical list may simply be the sign name.
- AK~a# — Sign AK, action verb 'to do/make'; '#' indicates editor uncertainty. In a sign list this is the sign entry itself.
- MUSZ3~a — Snake; the sign for serpent/snake. Standard reading but variant designation ~a noted.
- UR~a? — Possibly UR (dog, or a determinative for animals/persons); '?' in transliteration indicates editor uncertainty about this reading.
- NUNUZ~a1 — Egg or spawn; also used as a sign for 'seed' or 'roe'. Variant ~a1.
- HI — To mix, stir; also a musical instrument term. In a lexical list, primarily the sign name.
- ME~a# — Divine essence, divine power (Sumerian 'me'); '#' indicates damaged reading. One of the most theologically significant Sumerian terms, but here likely a lexical sign entry.
- NI2 — Self, own; also 'fear' or 'awe'. Difficult to determine semantic context in a sign list.
- BU~a — Sign BU; multiple meanings including 'to pluck', 'to blow', or a type of plant. Context insufficient to determine.
- GU2 — Neck, bank (of river); could also be a unit of weight (talent). In this lexical context, likely the sign name 'neck/bank'.
Reasoning ↓
Visual examination of the photograph (British Museum 128906, labeled U.12599 on the envelope/case): the obverse (centre-top image) shows a small, roughly square clay tablet approximately 3–4 cm across. The surface is heavily worn and cracked; individual wedge impressions are visible under raking light but resolution is insufficient to confidently isolate individual sign forms. The numerical notches (N01@f tally marks) along the left edge are discernible as short diagonal incisions, consistent with the transliteration's tally-mark notation. The main sign area in the right column shows dense incised marks but individual signs cannot be confirmed at this resolution. The reverse (centre-lower view) appears largely uninscribed or too eroded to read. The tablet is an Early Dynastic lexical or administrative exercise from Ur, and the sign sequences — KAL, DUG, GAN, AMA, AK, AN, MUSZ3, etc. — are consistent with known Early Dynastic Ur sign lists (cf. UET 2 lexical tablets; Englund & Grégoire, MSVO 1). Because this is an early scribal practice/lexical tablet, the 'translation' represents sign names and their referents rather than continuous prose: this is a sign list, not a narrative text. Many signs in the transliteration are flagged with '#' or '?' indicating the editor's own uncertainty, and several positions are marked 'X' (unread) or broken; confidence is accordingly low.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-11/v3-conventions · May 11, 2026 · 3099 in / 1160 out tokens
Transliteration
3(N01@f) , KAL~b2 DUG~a , GAN~d# AMA~b 1(N01@f) , AK~a# AN MUSZ3~a 1(N01@f) , UR~a? MA NUNUZ~a1 1(N01@f) , HI GISZ GI 2(N01@f) , GAL~a# SAG#? X X [...] 1(N01@f) , SAG# GAL~a MU GU2 2(N01@f) , U4 NU ME~a# 1(N01@f) , GAL~a X NI2 X [...] 1(N01@f) , BU~a [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0028. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005601) — 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.