Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 160
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the earliest known writing systems, recording quantities of goods — apparently containers, wood, and other commodities — against numeral notations and the office of the 'sanga,' a temple or institutional administrator. It is not a narrative text but a bookkeeping record, the kind of proto-cuneiform account that shows how early Mesopotamian institutions tracked the movement and allocation of goods before writing could express full sentences. The tablet is broken and worn, so several entries are only partially legible, but the surviving structure — numbers followed by commodity signs and an official's title — is typical of Uruk-period administrative practice.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a warehouse or temple account. It lists: 4 units of a foodstuff or vessel type (NINDA2xHI) charged to the sanga (the administrator); 2 units of wood or a wood product, also under the sanga; 2 units associated with an 'EN' official, though the rest of that line is broken away; another line beginning with what was probably a numeral is almost entirely lost. Further down, a sign called 'ME' appears, followed by a mention of a vessel (DUG) whose context is broken. The tablet ends with 1 vessel (DUG) that was disbursed — issued out — to or from a storehouse/institution called AMA-E2. In short: a fragmentary record of small quantities of goods being allotted through an administrator's office, ending with one container being formally released from stores.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4(N01) units, |NINDA2xHI| (commodity) — sanga (administrator) 2(N01) units, GISZ3 (wood/timber, variant b) — sanga (administrator) 2(N01) units, EN (lord/high official) [...] [2(N01)] units, [...] ME (sign of uncertain value) DUG (vessel) [...] 1(N14) unit, DUG (vessel) — disbursed (BA) — |AMA~axE2~a| (institution/storehouse compound)
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
4(N01) , |NINDA2xHI| SANGA~a 2(N01) , GISZ3~b# SANGA~a# 2(N01) , EN~a [...] [2(N01)] , [...] ME~a DUG~a [...] 1(N14) , DUG~a# BA |AMA~axE2~a|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 160. 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 (P325158) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.