Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 174
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200 BCE), one of the very earliest kinds of writing known — essentially a memorandum recording quantities of goods (grain, fish, birds, and other commodities) alongside institutional titles like 'sanga' (temple administrator) and 'en' (lord/high priest). Because the script is so archaic and many signs had not yet stabilized into fixed words, much of the text resists confident translation; what survives is best understood as a tally or receipt tied to a temple or institutional household. Its interest lies not in a dramatic narrative but in what it shows about the birth of accounting and bureaucracy in the world's first cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like a short accounting note from a temple or institutional office in early Uruk. It lists a quantity of some commodity (5 units) tied to the sanga, the local administrator, alongside what seem to be entries for fish, birds, and goods stored at a building or courtyard. Titles like 'en' (a high official or priest) and terms that may mark supervisory roles or totals appear alongside a vessel or container reference. The tablet breaks off partway through, with several signs at the end too damaged to read, and closes with what might be a notation meaning something was 'given' or 'deposited' — likely the final disposition of the recorded goods.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 5(N47) sila — [commodity], SANGA-official, U4×3(N57) (sign/measure) 2. fish(?) [commodity], courtyard 3. bird, storehouse 4. horn(?), ME-sign 5. EN (lord/high official), NE-sign 6. BU-sign, PAP-official/overseer, NAM2 7. LAGAB+LAGAB (double-LAGAB sign), jar/vessel, ground/place 8. [...] hand/SZU [...] 9. X X (illegible/damaged signs) 10. TE, RU ("given/deposited")
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
5(N47) , SANGA~a# |U4x3(N57)| , KU6~a KISAL~b1 MUSZEN# E2~a SI ME~a EN~a NE~a BU~a PAP~a NAM2 |LAGAB~b+LAGAB~b| DUG~a KI [...] SZU# [...] X X TE# RU#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 174. 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 (P325162) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.