CUSAS 01, 178

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325351

About this tablet

A small clay accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), written in proto-cuneiform — the very first stage of writing, before the script could record connected sentences. Seven short entries list quantities of goods (fish, a bird, something delivered, an amount tied to the city of Šuruppak) each attached to a place, an office, or a person; the reverse carries the grand total, 23, booked under an official titled EN, 'lord'. It is bookkeeping in its purest and oldest form: numbers first, words second. The tablet is part of the Cornell archaic collection and its findspot is unrecorded.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

A short ledger. Three units of fish for the courtyard; three units of SI and ME; three units for the bird and the house; two units handed over; three units delivered under BU; three units and three small measures for the supervisor; six units for Šuruppak. Signed off to the lord, EN — TE — issued. On the back, the accountant adds the sum: twenty-three units in total, charged to the same lord. The individual commodity terms are archaic and several cannot be pinned to a modern word, but the arithmetic still balances.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

Obverse column i 1. 3 (units) — fish, (of/for) the courtyard 2. 3 (units) — SI (horn?), ME 3. 3 (units) — bird (1 N57 + MUŠEN), house 4. 2 (units) — RU (given/deposited) 5. 3 (units) — BU, delivered (DU) 6. 3 (units), 3 (small units N57) — PAP (supervisor/elder) 7. 6 (units) — Šuruppak 8. EN (the lord), TE, allotted (BA) Reverse 9. 2 (N14 = large units) 3 (units) [= 23 in all] — EN (the lord), TE, allotted (BA)

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

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-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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