Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 195
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the very earliest forms of writing, dating to roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It is a numerical account — a ledger of quantities (recorded with the distinctive circular and dot impressions of the archaic counting system) paired with pictographic signs for commodities like grain, beer, and dairy products, and possibly labor or personnel categories. Tablets like this were the bookkeeping tools of early Mesopotamian institutions, tracking the movement and consumption of goods long before writing could record connected sentences — they are essentially receipts and inventories from the dawn of literacy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This damaged early accounting tablet records a series of quantities issued or tallied against various goods and categories. One entry lists 7 units against a storehouse or container item, described further by a quality mark (possibly a wool or brick grade) — the rest of that line is lost. Another records 5 units 'consumed' or issued as rations. A further entry notes 1 unit handled by a lord or senior official, delivered to a storehouse. Elsewhere the tablet records 1 unit of pulses along with beer, apportioned in some way, and a combined quantity of 5 plus 2 units of a commodity paired with a dairy product. Later lines mention a sizeable group of dependent workers or servants alongside signs for 'hand,' a sky or divine marker, and a grain-related term, and the tablet closes with a reference to a field or land measure — but breaks throughout the tablet, especially on the reverse, leave much of the account unrecoverable.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) 1. [...] 7(N14): storehouse-container (GA2~a2), LAGAB, water/A, SIG (thin- or wool-grade quality) 2. [...] : [...] (broken) 3. 5(N01): consumed / rationed out (GU7) 4. 1(N14): the lord/high official (EN~a), delivered (DU) to the storehouse (GA2~a1) 5. 1(N22): beans/pulse (GUG2), beer (KASZ~a), portion/disbursed (BAR) 6. 5(N14) 2(N22): DUR~a, milk/dairy product (GA~a) 7. [...]: [sign broken/illegible] 8. [broken numeral] dependent workers/UR5~a, hand/SZU, sky-or-divine marker (AN), NUNUZ~c (grain/seed[?]), and the unidentified sign ZATU788 9. [...] : [...] (broken) 10. [...] field/area (GAN2) [...] (broken)
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
[...] 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-sonnet-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.