Position in chronology
ATU 7, pl. 084, W 22102,5+
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Uruk, among the very earliest writing on earth (roughly 3100 BCE), recording quantities of goods — likely fish, along with references to officials such as a 'vizier' (SUKKAL) and an 'animal-fattener' (GURUSZDA), a courtyard, a cattle-pen, and possibly a date palm. It is organized in a grid of boxed entries, each pairing a number (marked by round stylus impressions) with one or more pictographic signs, the standard bookkeeping format of the world's first bureaucracies. The exact transaction it records — rations, deliveries, or tallies tied to fish and livestock management — cannot be fully reconstructed because several entries are broken away and many of the individual signs still resist confident interpretation.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken account tablet lists a series of numbered entries, each combining a quantity with one or two pictographic signs — the earliest known form of bookkeeping. The surviving lines mention fish, apparently linked to a courtyard and to an official called the vizier, plus other entries referencing a mixed measure tied to 'day,' a cattle-pen, an official known as the animal-fattener, and possibly a date palm. Two of the ten entries are too damaged to read at all, and the overall purpose of the tally — rations, deliveries, or an inventory — remains uncertain given how fragmentary and archaic the sign-list is.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 4(N14): |GA2~a1xU4| (compound sign), (of the) courtyard, fish. 2. 2(N14): KALAM~b (land/community), small, female, fish, PAP~a (supervisor/total-marker). 3. 4(N01): fish, (for/of) the SUKKAL (vizier/minister), TE. 4. 2(N01): |GIxGISZ@t| (compound reed-wood sign). 5. 2(N01): HI (mixed), U4 (day). 6. 3(N01)# [...], [text broken/lost]. 7. 5(N01): TUR3~b (cattle-pen/byre). 8. 5(N01): HI (mixed) U4 (day), (the) GURUSZDA (animal-fattener/official). 9. 2(N01): GISZIMMAR~b1(?) (date palm). 10. 1(N01) [...], [text broken/lost].
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
4(N14) , |GA2~a1xU4| KISAL~b1 KU6~a 2(N14) , KALAM~b TUR SAL KU6~a PAP~a 4(N01) , KU6~a SUKKAL TE 2(N01) , |GIxGISZ@t| 2(N01) , HI U4 3(N01)# [...] , [...] 5(N01) , TUR3~b 5(N01) , HI U4 GURUSZDA 2(N01) , GISZIMMAR~b1? 1(N01) [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — ATU 7, pl. 084, W 22102,5+. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, Germany (on loan, University of Heidelberg); Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (cast) (P004527) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.