Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 173
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period, one of the earliest forms of writing in the world, dating to roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It records quantities of sheep, fish, fruit, and various containers or vessels, likely tracking goods received, stored, or distributed by an administrative office — the kind of everyday bookkeeping that underpinned the first cities. The tablet is broken and worn, so many entries survive only as isolated numbers and sign-groups without full context.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This clay tablet is a broken account list. Only fragments of the first two lines survive. Then it records: a quantity of 4+2+1 units labeled with a 'year' or administrative sign; 3 units of sheep; 1 unit of carp-fish; a single entry marked '1(N52)'; 1 storage-jar of a particular type; 8 units handed over or disbursed; a restored entry of one unit of an unidentified commodity; 2 units of another unidentified item; a broken entry; 4 (and possibly 1 more) units of fruit; 2 units measured in some kind of vessel or basket; 2 units in another type of container; and a final, hard-to-parse line that seems to note barley of a 'new' or fresh batch being consumed or disbursed. The tablet is an inventory or ration list whose exact transaction and parties are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] [...] , [...] 4(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , MU |ZATU714xHI@g~a| 3(N14) , sheep 1(N01) , carp(-fish) 1(N52) 1(N01) , DUG-vessel (1(N57) variant) 8(N01) , [into the hand of / SZU2] [1(N01) , ZATU644~a] 2(N01) , ZATU753 [...] , [...] 4(N01) [1(N08)] , HASZHUR (fruit) 2(N01) , MA-vessel ZATU735~b 2(N01) , GA2-container ZATU1xX NI RU 2(N57) SU GIBIL [consumed/GU7]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] , [...] 4(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , MU |ZATU714xHI@g~a| 3(N14) , UDU~a 1(N01) , SUHUR 1(N52) 1(N01) , |DUG~cx1(N57)| 8(N01)# , [SZU2] [1(N01) , ZATU644~a] 2(N01) , ZATU753 [...] , [...] 4(N01) [1(N08)] , HASZHUR 2(N01) , MA ZATU735~b 2(N01)# , |GA2~a1xX| NI~a RU 2(N57) SU~a GIBIL [GU7]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 173. 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 (P325064) — 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.