Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 133
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (late 4th millennium BCE), among the oldest written documents in existence, now at Cornell University. Its badly worn surface preserves scraps of an economic account: small counted quantities, a measure of barley or seed-grain, and a closing note tying the entries to an institution — perhaps a storehouse or cattle-stall. Texts like this were pure bookkeeping, written centuries before writing could record spoken language, and they show accounting — not literature — as the birthplace of writing.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Only fragments of this ledger survive. One broken entry counted 4 of something; the next lines are too damaged to read beyond a reference to a storehouse and a storage unit, and possibly to seed-grain. Then three small entries are legible: 1 unit of an unidentified item, 1 measure of something qualified as 'mixed', and 1 measure of barley. The account closes with a tag assigning the goods — perhaps fish, perhaps another commodity — to an institution, likely a cattle-stall or storehouse. The rest is lost to erosion.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse? — mostly destroyed) [...] 4 (units, N01) [...] [...] ... (two unidentified signs) [...] [...] storehouse (E2), UB(-unit) [...] ..., seed(-grain)? 1 (unit, N01), ... (unidentified sign) 1 (N24 measure), HI ("mixed"?) 1 (N39 grain-measure), barley? (Final entry:) SUHUR — the cattle-stall/institution (AB)
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
[...] 4(N01)# , [...] [...] , X X [...] , [...] E2~a UB [...] , X NUMUN#? 1(N01) , X 1(N24) , HI@g~a# 1(N39~a) , SZE~a#? SUHUR AB~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 133. 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 (P325451) — 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.