Position in chronology
CUSAS 31, 162
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the earliest forms of writing in human history, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It records quantities of barley, sheep, and other goods against titles like EN ('lord' or institutional head) and closes with summary lines totaling grain held in what may be a cattle-stall or storage institution. The tablet is badly broken at top, bottom, and sides, so only fragments of a longer accounting record survive — but even in this state it shows the earliest bureaucratic bookkeeping of Mesopotamian temple or palace administration.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken clay tablet is an accounting slip. The surviving lines list small quantities — sheep, barley, wood, a vessel or official called 'šagan' — credited or charged to an official titled EN (a lord or institutional head). The middle portion, mostly lost, seems to record more grain and goods, including something 'given' or 'deposited' and an entry marked with the AN sign. At the bottom, the tablet totals up grain held in what looks like an institutional storehouse or cattle-pen, tallied under the EN and another official noted as having it 'in hand.' Much of the tablet — the beginning, several middle lines, and parts of the closing totals — is broken away and cannot be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] MEN-a, the šagan-official (vessel/commodity), wood — 2 (units), sheep, barley, — the EN (lord/official). [...] 3 (units), UR4 (harvested grain?), 1 (unit), ZATU850, ZATU850, 1 (unit), NAM2, given/deposited, 2 (units), barley — the EN; 1 (unit), AN. [...] 2 (units), the EN: AB-cattle-stall/institution (barley-and-barley), AB (1 unit) — 1(large)+3(units), SZU (received/in hand of): AB-cattle-stall/institution (barley-and-barley), AB (1 unit) — 3(large)# [3(units)], AB-cattle-stall/institution (barley-and-barley)# [AB (1 unit)].
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
[...] [...] MEN~a SZAGAN GISZ# 2(N01) , UDU~a SZE~a , EN~a [...] 3(N57) , UR4~b 1(N01) , ZATU850 ZATU850 1(N01) , NAM2 RU 2(N01) , SZE~a EN~a 1(N04) , AN [...] 2(N14) , EN~a |AB~ax(SZE~a&SZE~a)| |AB~ax1(N04)| 1(N14) 3(N01) , SZU |AB~ax(SZE~a&SZE~a)| |AB~ax1(N04)|# 3(N14)# [3(N01)] , |AB~ax(SZE~a&SZE~a)|# [|AB~ax1(N04)|]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 31, 162. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P235782) — 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.