Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 131
About this tablet
This is one of the oldest kinds of written document in existence: a proto-cuneiform grain account from the Uruk period, around 3300–3000 BCE, before writing could yet record full sentences. An administrator noted out a series of barley allotments — measured in the archaic grain-capacity system — issued to various offices, institutions, and functionaries, several entries tied to the city of Uruk itself, one to a field, one to a SUKKAL-official (a title that later meant 'vizier'). The final line adds everything up as grain 'consumed,' i.e. disbursed. It is bookkeeping at the very birth of writing: numbers and category-signs, no grammar, no names we can securely pronounce.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A barley ledger with a bottom line. Entry by entry, the accountant records grain measures going out: a portion to the cattle-stall institution, portions to an office called UB-ZI (three of them linked to the city of Uruk), one marked as barley delivered, one to the SUKKAL-official, one charged against a field, one against an official whose sign we can no longer decipher, thirty units against an illegible heading, and one for flax or cordage. Then the total: roughly two large units, four mid-size and two fractional measures of barley, booked as consumed — that is, disbursed and off the account. Several of the recipient signs are archaic and still undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N05) 1(N42a) (grain measures) — cattle-stall/institution (AB), ZATU714 (undeciphered sign); 1(N01) — ZATU710 (undeciphered sign), supervisor (PAP), (of the office/unit) UB-ZI; 1(N01) — SI (horn?), TUN3 (vessel?); 2(N42a) — ZATU710, UB-ZI, KU3 ('pure/metal'?), AD; 3(N42a) — ZATU710, (of) Uruk; 3(N42a) — ZATU710, UB-ZI, (of) Uruk; 3(N42a) — UB-ZI, (of) Uruk; 1(N05) — UB-ZI, barley (ŠE), delivered (DU), A (water?); 1(N05) — UB-ZI, I, the SUKKAL-official; 1(N05) 1(N42a) 1(N25) — field (GAN2), IŠ; 1(N42a) — ZATU714; 3(N14) — ... (sign illegible); 1(N05) — DAR, GU (flax/cord?); (Total:) 2(N20) 4(N05) 3(N42a) 1(N25) barley (ŠE) — consumed (GU7), MUD, NA, BU.
Our translation engine — Fable 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(N05) 1(N42~a) , AB~a ZATU714 1(N01)# , ZATU710 PAP~a# UB ZI~a 1(N01) , SI TUN3~a 2(N42~a)# , ZATU710 UB ZI~a# KU3~a AD~a 3(N42~a) , ZATU710 UNUG~b 3(N42~a) , ZATU710 UB ZI~a UNUG~b 3(N42~a) , UB ZI~a UNUG~b 1(N05) , UB ZI~a# SZE~a DU A 1(N05)# , UB# ZI~a# I SUKKAL 1(N05) 1(N42~a)# 1(N25) , GAN2 ISZ~b 1(N42~a) , ZATU714 3(N14) , X 1(N05) , DAR~a GU~a 2(N20)# 4(N05) 3(N42~a) 1(N25) SZE~a , GU7 MUD NA~a BU~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 131. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P325360) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.