Position in chronology
UET 2, 0142
About this tablet
One of the oldest administrative tablets in human history, excavated at Ur in southern Iraq and dating to the Early Dynastic period (roughly 2900–2600 BCE). It is a proto-cuneiform accounting list recording quantities — expressed in the archaic numerical notation N14@f — assigned to various institutional titles and commodity categories, including a governor (ensi), a temple administrator (sanga), and what appears to be a calf or young-animal designation (AMAR). The signs are pictographic and only partially legible even to specialists, but the tablet is a direct ancestor of the later Sumerian bureaucratic tradition. Its survival offers a rare window into the record-keeping systems of one of the world's earliest cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A damaged administrative list records allocations of goods or personnel against a series of institutional titles and commodity terms. Three units go to the governor; one to a category involving fish product, a liquid measure, and aromatic substances; three more to the temple administrator associated with calves; and further portions to a courtyard store, various quality grades, a statue category, a container measure, and two single-unit entries at the close. The opening lines are broken and cannot be read; the full sense of many entries remains unclear due to the archaic sign forms.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] GALGA~a[?] [...] [...] A [...] AMAR |DUG~axHI| 3(N14@f) — ENSI 1(N14@f) — MUD KU6~a DIN |MAx2(N57)| AN IR~a MUSZ3~a 3(N14@f) — SANGA~a AMAR 3(N14@f)[?] [...] — [...] ME~a EN~a PA~a KI [...] 1(N14@f) — KISAL~b1 AMAR 3(N14@f) — ME~a SI NAGA~a 1(N14@f) — SI |GA2~a1xNUN~a| AMA~b 2(N14@f) — NI~b ZI~a 2(N14@f) — ALAN~a AMA~b 2(N14@f) — MA |(ZU&ZU).SAR~a| 1(N14@f) — SZAGAN 1(N14@f) — AK~a
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] GALGA~a#? [...] , [...] A [...] , AMAR |DUG~axHI| 3(N14@f) , ENSI 1(N14@f) , MUD KU6~a DIN |MAx2(N57)| AN IR~a MUSZ3~a# 3(N14@f) , SANGA~a AMAR 3(N14@f)# [...] , [...] ME~a EN~a PA~a KI [...] 1(N14@f)# , KISAL~b1# AMAR 3(N14@f) , ME~a SI NAGA~a 1(N14@f) , SI |GA2~a1xNUN~a| AMA~b 2(N14@f) , NI~b ZI~a 2(N14@f) , ALAN~a AMA~b# 2(N14@f) , MA |(ZU&ZU).SAR~a| 1(N14@f) , SZAGAN 1(N14@f) , AK~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0142. 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 (P005724) — 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.