Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 175
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform account from the Uruk period, about 3200–3000 BCE. It comes from the first centuries of writing, when scribes mainly used signs to keep track of goods. The tablet lists small numbers of household equipment: wooden items, two kinds of vessels, reed mats and another item called MA. A closing entry links them to a 'house' or institution, along with signs for grain and cultivated land. It shows an early institution counting its furniture and containers. Because the language behind these signs is uncertain and the tablet's origin is unknown, we can only partly understand how the entries relate to each other.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an inventory of household equipment. It lists 2 wooden items belonging to the house, 6 jars of a special marked type, 6 reed mats, 17 items called MA, and at least 10 cauldron-like vessels. The exact last number is lost. A closing note says these goods were allotted and links them to a house or estate, along with words for grain and garden land. One last note mentions oil (or fat), also allotted. How the closing words fit together can no longer be worked out with any certainty.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 2 (units): tilted-wood (GIŠ@t) object(s) — E2~a (house/household) 6 (units): vessels of the DUG~b type marked with sheep × TAR 6 (units): KID~b (reed mats) 17 (1 ten, 7 units): MA 1 ten + [...]: ŠEN~b vessels Summary / colophon: BA (allotted), DUB~a, E2~a (house), KALAM~g, URU~a1, ŠE~a (barley/grain), SAR~a Reverse (or final case): NI~a, BA (allotted)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
2(N01) , GISZ@t# E2~a 6(N01) , |DUG~bx(UDU~axTAR)| 6(N01) , KID~b 1(N14) 7(N01) , MA 1(N14) [...] , SZEN~b BA DUB~a E2~a KALAM~g URU~a1 SZE~a SAR~a , NI~a BA
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 175. 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 (P325453) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.