Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 157
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — the very dawn of writing. An anonymous accountant recorded small quantities of fish and other processed goods (some written with signs whose meaning is still undeciphered) connected with a cattle-pen, a courtyard, and an official called a SANGA, the ancestor of the later temple administrator. Texts like this show that writing was invented not for literature or prayer, but for bookkeeping: counting deliveries and rations for the earliest urban institutions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short institutional account. It lists: four measures of a fish product and three measures of another processed commodity, booked under the administrator in charge of the cattle-pen; then one and a fraction measures set down as a daily deposit or ration; one and a fraction measures of the fish product for the courtyard; ten units for the cattle-pen; and two units of the processed goods under the entry HAL. Several of the commodity terms are written with signs we can no longer identify, so we know the quantities better than the goods themselves. The back of the tablet carries no further entries.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 4 (N39) units: fish, ZATU710 (product); 3 (N39) units: ZATU714+HI (product), ME; (under) the SANGA-official (of) the cattle-pen. 1 (N39) 1 (N24) units: day(?)-ration deposited (U4 GAR); 1 (N39) 1 (N24) units: ZATU710 (product), fish, (of) the courtyard; 10 (N14) units: cattle-pen, ME; 2 (N01) units: ZATU710 (product), HAL, ZATU714+HI (product). Reverse: uninscribed (no text preserved beyond surface traces).
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
4(N39~a)# , KU6~a ZATU710 3(N39~a)# , |ZATU714xHI@g~a| ME~a SANGA~a TUR3~b 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , U4 GAR 1(N39~a)# 1(N24) , ZATU710 KU6~a KISAL~b1 1(N14)# , TUR3~b ME~a 2(N01) , ZATU710# HAL# |ZATU714xHI@g~a|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 157. 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 (P325068) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.