Position in chronology
UET 2, 0273
About this tablet
This small, rounded clay tablet from Ur — one of the earliest cities in southern Iraq — dates to the Early Dynastic period, roughly 2900–2500 BCE, and belongs to the very beginnings of written record-keeping. It is an administrative list recording quantities of commodities and personnel categories, probably livestock (sheep), female workers or female animals, and associated processed goods, managed by a temple or palace institution. The signs are largely pictographic, standing at the transitional stage between proto-cuneiform picture-writing and full Sumerian script, which makes precise reading difficult even for specialists. It is the kind of everyday accounting document that tells us the ancient economy ran on meticulous tallying long before literature or law were committed to clay.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records a series of allocations or receipts across several categories: one unit of a fish-type product associated with a large container or boat; two units involving junior female workers or small female animals; one unit each of two further commodity combinations involving water/liquid and sheep; two units linked to a storehouse; one unit of a compound entry involving side portions; two units of female sheep; and again two units of the liquid-and-storage combination. The precise goods and the names of the responsible officials are lost to the archaic script and surface damage — what survives is the bare numerical skeleton of an institutional transaction.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 [unit]: [commodity: MUD-type/fish product?], MAR~a (boat/container?) — GAL~a (large/great), A (water/liquid?), SA~a 2 [units]: female (SAL), small/junior (TUR) 1 [unit]: ZI~a, A (water/liquid?), HUB2 1 [unit]: NI~b, sheep (UDU~a) 2 [units]: HI (mixed?), storehouse/building (E2~a) 1 [unit]: DUR2, RA, LAGAB~b, DA~a (side/rib?), DAR~a? 2 [units]: female sheep (SAL UDU~a) 2 [units]: ZI~a, A (water/liquid?), HUB2 [remainder blank/uninscribed]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(N01@f) , |MUD3~a@gxGU| MAR~a , GAL~a A SA~a 2(N01@f) , SAL TUR 1(N01@f) , ZI~a A HUB2 1(N01@f) , NI~b UDU~a 2(N01@f) , HI E2~a 1(N01@f) , DUR2 RA LAGAB~b DA~a DAR~a? 2(N01@f) , SAL UDU~a 2(N01@f) , ZI~a A HUB2 ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0273. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005863) — 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.