Position in chronology
CDLJ 2009/4 §4
About this tablet
This is a small section (§4) of a large, multi-column proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, now in the Schøyen Collection (MS 3035). The photograph shows a dense account tablet covered on every face with rows of number-signs and commodity signs — the kind of record ancient Mesopotamian bureaucrats kept to track deliveries or allotments of goods such as salt, tools, and rationed commodities, organized under named officials or categories and closed with a running total. Because the script here is still 'proto-cuneiform' (pictographic, pre-syllabic), many of the individual signs remain only provisionally understood, and this excerpt is one entry-block among several on the tablet.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This fragment reads like a line from a warehouse ledger. One entry records a single unit of salt (the sign is partly chipped away). Another logs 43 units of something called AL — possibly hoes or a related category of goods or workers. A further entry counts 11 units associated with a senior official or office-holder, marked as 'junior' or a subordinate class. Three more lines record smaller quantities — 5, 10, and 16 units — each tied to a compound sign built around the 'day/sun' sign, also marked 'small'. The section closes with a summary line: a total of 85 units, followed by a string of commodity and category signs — salt again, something called SU, a totaling notation, a compound sign, and then several more terms (SI, AN, AD, GIR) whose exact administrative role isn't pinned down. In short: a tally of goods, officials, or categories, closing out with a grand total, in a record too old and too pictographic for us to read with full confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N57 unit): MUN [salt] (sign partly broken) 43 (4×N14 + 3×N01): AL 11 (1×N14 + 1×N01): EN, (the) TUR (junior/small) 5 (N01): |U4x1(N57)| TUR (compound sign, 'small') 10 (N14): |U4x2(N57)| TUR (compound sign, 'small') 16 (1×N14 + 6×N01): |U4x3(N57)| TUR (compound sign, 'small') Total 85 (1×N34 + 2×N14 + 5×N01): 1(N57) 2(N57) MUN [salt], SU, PAP (total/sum), compound sign |1(N58).BAD|, SI, AN, AD, GIR
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
, 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-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.