Position in chronology
UET 2, 0218
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the Early Dynastic city of Ur (modern Tell Muqayyar in southern Iraq), dating to roughly 2900–2500 BCE. It records quantities of birds — probably poultry or bird rations — using the archaic proto-cuneiform number system alongside the bird sign (MUSZEN) and one or two commodity qualifiers. Tablets like this represent the very earliest layer of written record-keeping: not narrative or literature, but the daily counts of goods managed by a temple or palace storehouse. The fragmentary state makes the precise transaction unclear, but it belongs to the vast archive of Early Dynastic Ur that documents how administrators tracked livestock and provisions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several entries of birds with associated quantities. The first legible entry lists a large number (roughly 51 or so, using the archaic counting notation) of birds, with a qualifier now partly broken away. The second entry gives 35 birds with a notation involving the bird sign and a seated or source-related marker (DUR2 BU~a). The remaining three lines are either heavily damaged or entirely broken, preserving only partial number signs and no readable commodity or name. The rest is too fragmentary to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5(N14@f) 1(N01@f)? [...] , 1(N57) BIRD# [...] 3(N14@f) 5(N01@f) , BIRD [seated/source-marker] BU~a [...] , [...] 5(N14@f)# 1(N01@f)# [...] , [...] 1(N14@f) [...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(N14@f) 1(N01@f)? [...] , 1(N57) MUSZEN# [...] 3(N14@f) 5(N01@f) , MUSZEN DUR2 BU~a [...] , [...] 5(N14@f)# 1(N01@f)# [...] , [...] 1(N14@f) [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0218. 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 (P005813) — 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.