Position in chronology
UET 2, 0361
About this tablet
A small Early Dynastic administrative tablet from Ur, dating to roughly 2900–2500 BCE, recording quantities of commodities or land measures assigned to named individuals or institutional categories. The entries combine archaic numerical notations with sign-clusters that include a high-status title (EN, 'lord/priest'), a possible reference to DILMUN — the Gulf trading region — and the word for 'king' (LUGAL) in the penultimate legible line. The tablet is tiny (under 5 cm) and cone-shaped, typical of the earliest Sumerian bureaucratic record-keeping at Ur, and its partial legibility makes it a tantalizing but frustratingly fragmentary window onto elite or royal resource management at one of Mesopotamia's oldest cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several batches of quantities — the largest being 63 units of something classified as GAN2 (a field or area measure), followed by smaller lots of 33 units associated with a lord or high official and a vessel or jar, and 13 units linked to what may be a 'king.' One entry possibly references Dilmun, the ancient Gulf trading region. The final lines are too broken to read. This appears to be a short administrative tally, parceling out land areas or goods among institutional officials, with the king named as one of the recipients or responsible parties.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6(N14) 1(N22) 3(N01) — GAN2 [...] — [...] X DILMUN[?] 3(N14) 1(N22) 3(N01) — EN [DUG?] X 1(N14) — AN LA[?] A ME[?] 1(N14) 1(N22) 3(N01) — [...] AK [...] 7(N14) 1(N22)[?] 1(N01)[?] [...] — [...] — LUGAL [...] — [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
6(N14@f) 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , GAN2 [...] , [...] X DILMUN#? 3(N14@f) 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , EN~a DUG~a? X 1(N14@f) , AN LA~e? A ME~a#? 1(N14@f) 1(N22@f) 3(N01@f) , [...] AK~a [...] 7(N14@f)# 1(N22@f)#? 1(N01@f)# [...] , [...] , LUGAL [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0361. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005948) — 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.