Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 217
About this tablet
This is a small fragment of a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the very earliest phases of writing in Mesopotamia, roughly the late fourth millennium BCE. It appears to be a tally of grain (barley) quantities recorded in a grid of numeral notations, alongside a few pictographic signs that may denote personnel, commodities, or transaction categories — the everyday bookkeeping of an early temple or palace household. Much of the tablet is broken or worn, so only isolated numbers and signs survive rather than a continuous, readable account.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This clay fragment carries part of an old grain ledger. One entry records '5' of something, now lost to breakage. Another line notes '3' units next to a grain-related sign. Several following lines are too damaged to read at all. Further down, a '3' appears next to an unclear sign, then two lines each marked '2' with their details lost. Near the end, a foot- or leg-shaped sign appears next to what may be a 'head' sign, possibly marking a person or overseer, followed by more lost text. Overall, this is a fragmentary tally — numbers of grain or goods recorded against categories or people whose exact names and roles no longer survive on the broken clay.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Line 1) [...] 5(N14) [...] (Line 2) 3(N14), |ŠE~a.NAM2| — "3 (units), grain(-NAM2 marker)" (Line 3) [...] , [...] (broken) (Line 4) [...] , [...] (broken) (Line 5) 3(N14)# , X [...] — "3 (units), [damaged sign] [...]" (Line 6) [...] , [...] (broken) (Line 7) 2(N14) [...] , [...] — "2 (units) [...], [...]" (Line 8) 2(N14)# [...] , [...] — "2 (units), [damaged] [...], [...]" (Line 9) [...] , GIR3@g~b SAG# [...] — "[...], GIR3 (variant g/b) — SAG [damaged] [...]" (Line 10) [...] , [...] (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
[...] 5(N14)# , [...] 3(N14) , |SZE~a.NAM2| [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 3(N14)# , X [...] [...] , [...] 2(N14) [...] , [...] 2(N14)# [...] , [...] [...] , GIR3@g~b SAG# [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 217. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Rare Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, USA (P006350) — 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.