Position in chronology
UET 2, 0081a
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the Early Dynastic period at Ur (ancient Sumer, modern southern Iraq), probably dating to around 2900–2500 BCE. It records quantities of commodities — including what appear to be livestock (sheep) and possibly agricultural products such as grapes or wine — alongside category labels and what may be a reference to a king (LUGAL). The tablet is badly damaged, with several lines broken away, making a full reading impossible. It belongs to a well-known class of proto-cuneiform economic records: the everyday counting and accounting that kept Sumerian institutions running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records several allocations or stock entries: 4 units of something in the field/GAN2 category associated with a vine or grape product; 1, 1, and 3 units of sheep under the ME category; 2 units of a male-worker category (SZESZ); further entries are too broken to read. One line mentions the ME category again alongside AN; another records 7 units of something connected to a king (LUGAL). The final readable line adds 1 unit of an unidentified commodity. Several lines are entirely lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 [units], field/category [sign] GESZTIN~c (wine/grapes?) 1 [unit] 1 [unit] 3 [sub-units], ME~a sheep 2 [units], SZESZ~a# [X] [...], [...] 1 [unit] [...], [...] , ME~a AN# [...] 7 [units], X LUGAL# [...] 1 [unit] X [...], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(N14@f) , GAN2 |SZESZ~a+IB~a| GESZTIN~c 1(N14@f) 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , ME~a UDU~a 2(N14@f) , SZESZ~a# X [...] , [...] 1(N14@f) [...] , [...] , ME~a AN# [...] 7(N14@f) , X LUGAL# [...] 1(N14@f) X [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0081a. 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 (P005655) — 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.