Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 188
About this tablet
This is a small administrative note from the Uruk period (about 3200–3000 BCE), written in proto-cuneiform, the earliest form of writing. Entries of five units go to named offices or recipients, including a chief and the overseer of a settlement, and are linked to a 'beer festival' and to numbered days. The last line records what was consumed on day 6 of the festival. It is a very early glimpse of how temple and palace offices kept track of supplies set aside for feasts. We don't know where it was found: it came through the antiquities trade and is now held at Cornell.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five measures went to the chief (the next sign is unclear), for day 1. Five measures went to the official known as EN2, with a further 3 units noted, but the rest of that line is broken. Five measures went to the town overseer for the beer festival, on day 4. The total consumed during the beer festival is logged for day 6. The back of the tablet has no writing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. 5 (units, N05 numeral) — great/chief (GAL) … [X]; day 1 [...] 2. 5 (N05) — EN2, 3 (N57 units) [...] 3. 5 (N05) — overseer (PA) of the settlement (URU); beer festival (EZEN×KAŠ); day 4 4. Consumed (GU7): beer festival (EZEN×KAŠ); day 6 Reverse (uninscribed / no text given in the transliteration)
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
1(N05) , GAL~a# X |U4x1(N57)|# [...] 1(N05) , EN2 3(N57) [...] 1(N05) , PA~a URU~a1 |EZEN~axKASZ~b| |U4x4(N57)| GU7# |EZEN~axKASZ~b|# |U4x6(N57)|#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 188. 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 (P325742) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.