Position in chronology
CMAA 020-C0003
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the very end of the 4th millennium BCE — the world's earliest writing system, from the city of Uruk (this example likely from Umma). It is a tally of livestock and goods, using proto-cuneiform pictographic signs and a simple tally-mark numeral system (vertical wedges for units) rather than full sentences. The surviving lines record single head of animals, including at least one kid-goat, tracked with administrative qualifiers whose exact meanings (grade, source pen, personnel category) are still debated by specialists, since this script predates any grammatical or phonetic clarity — it is essentially a bookkeeping notation, not connected prose.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record lists a series of one-unit entries — the first line is too damaged to read beyond the quantity 'one.' The next line counts one kid-goat, marked with additional sign-qualifiers whose exact sense (possibly indicating age, sex, or handler) is unclear. Two more lines each record one unit under a qualifier called 'NUN,' one of them further marked with terms that might mean 'ration' and 'chief' or 'overseer,' though this can't be confirmed. After that the tablet breaks off, and the next legible trace is a count of six units before the text is lost again. The rest of the tablet — visible in the photo as a second, larger inscribed face on the reverse — was not included in the transliteration supplied.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 1(N01) unit(s), [...] X X (traces illegible) 1(N01) unit(s): a kid-goat (MASZ2), sign ZATU628~a, DIM~a, [qualifier] SAL 1(N01) unit(s): NUN~b, DIM~a 1(N01) unit(s): NUN~b, GAR, SAG (head/overseer), sign ZATU694~c [...], [...] (broken) [...] 6(N01) unit(s), [...] (broken)
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(N01)# , [...] X X 1(N01) , MASZ2 ZATU628~a DIM~a SAL 1(N01) , NUN~b DIM~a 1(N01) , NUN~b GAR SAG ZATU694~c [...] , [...] [...] 6(N01)# , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CMAA 020-C0003. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: California Museum of Ancient Art, Los Angeles, California, USA (P218054) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.