Position in chronology
CDLJ 2009/4 §4
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE, likely originating from the city of Umma in southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities — prominently salt — distributed to or assigned under different categories of officials or recipients, some designated 'junior' (TUR) and one apparently a high-ranking figure (EN~a). The final line is a summary or totaling entry typical of Uruk-period accounting practice, bundling together multiple commodity types under a grand total. It belongs to the very earliest layer of human record-keeping, when writing was invented specifically to track institutional goods, and it shows the characteristic complexity of proto-cuneiform bookkeeping even at this embryonic stage.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a quantity of salt and a quantity of agricultural implements (hoes), then lists further sub-allocations assigned to a junior high official and to three groups distinguished by increasingly complex day/sun qualifiers — each also marked as 'junior.' The final line totals everything up: the grand sum covers salt and several other commodities, overseen or associated with a senior figure and a range of institutional categories whose exact meanings are still debated. In short: a tightly organized inventory of salt and related goods, parceled out to named ranks of officials and summed at the bottom.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (face): [Top edge:] 1(N57) — salt 4(N14) 3(N01) — hoe/agricultural implement [AL] 1(N14) 1(N01) — [for/of] the lord (EN~a), junior [TUR] 5(N01) — [commodity marked by] |U4×1(N57)|, junior 1(N14) — [commodity marked by] |U4×2(N57)|, junior 1(N14) 6(N01) — [commodity marked by] |U4×3(N57)|, junior Summary/total line: 1(N34) 2(N14) 5(N01) — [grand total] — 1(N57) 2(N57) salt; [commodity] SU~a; elder/supervisor [PAP~a]; |1(N58).BAD~a|; SI; AN; AD~a; GIR~a
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
, 1(N57) MUN~a1# 4(N14) 3(N01) , AL 1(N14) 1(N01) , EN~a TUR 5(N01) , |U4x1(N57)| TUR 1(N14) , |U4x2(N57)| TUR 1(N14) 6(N01) , |U4x3(N57)| TUR 1(N34) 2(N14) 5(N01) , 1(N57) 2(N57) MUN~a1 SU~a PAP~a |1(N58).BAD~a| SI AN AD~a GIR~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLJ 2009/4 §4. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006268) — 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.
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.