Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 160
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, around 3300–3000 BCE — the very dawn of writing, before script could record connected speech. It tallies quantities of foodstuffs and jars disbursed to or handled by named offices: the SANGA (an early administrator), an EN (a lord or institutional head), and a household institution written 'mother-house'. Texts like this show that writing was invented not for literature or prayer but for bookkeeping — tracking who received what in the temple-centered economies of early Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
An account sheet: four units of bread rations charged to the administrator; two units of another item, also to the administrator; two units to the lord — the rest of that entry is broken away, as is the next line, which probably recorded two more units. A damaged entry mentions jars. The total or final entry, on the back, records ten jars distributed to the 'mother-house' establishment. Several entries are too damaged to read in full.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) 4 (units, N01): NINDA₂×HI (bread/ration measure) — the SANGA (temple administrator); 2 (units, N01): GISZ₃ — the SANGA; 2 (units, N01): the EN (lord/institutional head) [...]; [2 (units, N01)]: [...]; ME; jar(s) (DUG) [...]; (Reverse) 10 (1 N14): jars (DUG), allotted (BA) — (for/of) the AMA×E₂ (the 'mother-house' institution/household).
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) , |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-fable-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.