Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 178
About this tablet
This is a small clay accounting tablet from the proto-cuneiform period (Uruk/Early Dynastic transition), one of humanity's earliest written records. It tallies deliveries and disbursements of goods — fish, horn, birds, and an unidentified plant or bird-related commodity — moving between a storehouse, a courtyard or storage area, and the city of Šuruppak, with a final allotment made under the authority of an official titled EN ('lord' or high official). Tablets like this are the bookkeeping backbone of the earliest cities, tracking rations and goods rather than telling a story, and their terse notation is still only partly understood by modern scholars.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet. Three units of fish are recorded against a courtyard or storage area. Three units of horn are logged under a category called 'ME.' Three units connected to a bird are noted for the storehouse. Two units are marked as given or deposited. Three units of a plant-like commodity (BU) are recorded as delivered. A running total of three plus a larger count is marked with a supervisory or summary notation. Six units are sent to the city of Šuruppak. Finally, a quantity is recorded as disbursed under the authority of 'the lord' (EN), first for one entry and then, in the closing line, for a larger amount of two-plus-three units, again disbursed by the same official.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3 units — fish — (of the) courtyard/storage-area (KISAL) 2. 3 units — horn(s) (SI) — ME 3. 3 units — 1(N57)-bird (MUŠEN) — storehouse (E2) 4. 2 units — RU (given/deposited) 5. 3 units — BU (commodity) — DU (delivered) 6. 3(N01) 3(N57) — PAP (total/supervisor marker) 7. 6 units — to Šuruppak 8. the lord/EN — TE — disbursed (BA) 9. 2(N14) 3(N01) — the lord/EN — TE — disbursed (BA)
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
3(N01) , KU6~a KISAL~b1 3(N01) , SI ME~a 3(N01) , |1(N57).MUSZEN| E2~a 2(N01) , RU 3(N01) , BU~a DU 3(N01) 3(N57) , PAP~a 6(N01) , SZURUPPAK~b EN~a TE BA 2(N14) 3(N01) , EN~a TE BA
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 178. 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 (P325351) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.