Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 195
About this tablet
An accounting tablet in proto-cuneiform, the earliest form of writing, from the late Uruk period in southern Mesopotamia (around 3300–3000 BCE). Its exact findspot is unknown, and it is now at Cornell University. The obverse is split into boxes. Each box has a number, made by pressing a round stylus into the clay, followed by word-signs for goods or people: things 'consumed', a high official or 'lord' (EN), what may be cakes and beer, and what may be a dairy product. The signs are older than written grammar, so we can make out the bookkeeping but not the full sentences. Records like this show how writing began, as a tool for tracking what went into and out of institutions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger of goods. The first entry records 70 units of something written GA2-LAGAB-A-SIG. The next entry is broken. Five units are marked as consumed. Ten units are listed with the lord or high official (EN). Another entry seems to count cakes and beer. After that comes a quantity of what may be a dairy product. Several more entries are too damaged to read, apart from a line naming UR5, SZU, AN and NUNUZ. The reverse is almost completely worn away, but a mention of a field survives.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. [...] 7(N14) (= 70 units): GA2~a2 LAGAB~b A SIG 2. [...] : [...] 3. 5(N01) (= 5 units): consumption (GU7) 4. 1(N14) (= 10 units): EN (the lord/official) — DU — GA2~a1 5. 1(N22): GUG2 cakes (?), beer (KASZ~a), BAR 6. 5(N14) 2(N22): DUR~a GA~a (milk/dairy product ?) 7. [...] : X 8. X UR5~a SZU AN NUNUZ~c ZATU788 9. [...] : [...] (Reverse / edge) 10. [...] field (GAN2) [...]
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
[...] 7(N14) , GA2~a2 LAGAB~b A# SIG [...] , [...] 5(N01) , GU7 1(N14) , EN~a DU GA2~a1 1(N22) , GUG2 KASZ~a BAR 5(N14) 2(N22) , DUR~a GA~a [...] , X X UR5~a SZU AN NUNUZ~c ZATU788 [...] , [...] [...] GAN2# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 195. 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 (P326288) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.