Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 176
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from the Uruk period, around 3300–3000 BCE — some of the oldest writing in the world, produced before anyone had worked out how to write sentences. It records measured quantities of barley, expressed in the specialised grain-capacity numerals of the period, together with a note of fish and a place called the 'courtyard,' and marks certain amounts as disbursed and others as an exchange value. The exact institution behind it is unknown (the tablet has no recorded findspot), but it belongs to the world of temple and estate storerooms where accountancy first drove the invention of script.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Grain ledger. First entry: six large measures of barley, charged to UR₂. Next line: the exchange value, issued. Then a larger lot — four, one, two and three units in descending measures — barley, issued, its exchange value, plus fish, for the courtyard. Another barley entry follows: four, one and three units. On the back, two short number lines close the account: one measure and nine units, then three units and three more, entered under LAGAB×TE. The edges are chipped and several of the signs survive only in part.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Face A — obverse) 1. 6 N₁₄ (of) barley — UR₂ 2. [ ] — exchange-price; allotted 3. 4 N₃₄, 1 N₃₆, 2 N₄₅, 3 N₁₄ — barley; allotted; exchange-price; fish; courtyard 4. 4 N₃₄, 1 N₄₅, 3 N₁ — barley (Face B — reverse) 5. 1 N₃₆, 9 N₁₉ 6. 3 N₁₉, 3 N₄ — LAGAB×TE (Both faces are chipped along the upper and lower edges; several signs marked as damaged in the edition — the initial 6 N₁₄, ŠE, UR₂, ŠAM₂, BA and the final 3 N₁₉ — are only partly preserved.)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
6(N14)# , SZE~a# UR2# , SZAM2# BA 4(N34) 1(N36) 2(N45) 3(N14) , SZE~a BA# SZAM2 KU6 KISAL~b1 4(N34) 1(N45) 3(N01) , SZE~a 1(N36) 9(N19) 3(N19)# 3(N04) , |LAGAB~b.TE|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 176. 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 (P257532) — 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.