Position in chronology
CUSAS 31, 162
About this tablet
This is a small accounting tablet from the very beginning of writing, the Late Uruk period (about 3300–3000 BCE) in southern Iraq. It uses proto-cuneiform, a system that was still mostly pictures and number-marks. Scribes listed goods such as sheep, barley and wool beside titles like EN, the 'lord' or chief official, and then added them up on the back under an institution written with an unusual 'house' sign. The exact place it came from is unknown because it is in an anonymous private collection. Even so, its arithmetic still checks: 20 plus 13 makes 33.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger of items belonging to an institution. The first lines are lost. The next entries list a jar and a wooden item, then 2 units of sheep and barley for the lord (EN). After a break there are 3 units of shearing or wool plucking, a single item of an unidentified kind, and one entry marked NAM2 RU. Next come 2 units of barley for the lord and one unit marked AN. Some more text is lost. The back of the tablet gives the totals for the household: 20 under the lord, 13 under ŠU, and 33 in all.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (probably): [...] [...] MEN, ŠAGAN-jar, GIŠ (wood/tool) 2 (units): sheep, barley — EN (the lord / chief official) [...] 3(N57): UR4 (plucking/shearing) 1: ZATU850 ZATU850 1: NAM2, RU 2: barley, EN; 1(N04): AN [...] Reverse (probably), totals: 20: EN — AB-institution (the AB variant written with a double grain sign and N04 inside) 13: ŠU — AB-institution [3]3 (total): AB-institution
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
[...] [...] 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-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.