MS 2357

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006025

About this tablet

This small lenticular clay tablet, catalogued MS 2357 in the Schøyen Collection and dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), is one of the earliest forms of writing in human history. It records a terse administrative list — quantities of commodities, animals, or rations assigned to or distributed among named offices or categories of personnel, including a SANGA (a temple administrator) and an EN (a high-status official or lord). The tablet likely comes from the city of Umma in southern Iraq and represents the very kind of institutional bookkeeping that drove the invention of writing: not poetry or myth, but the practical need to track goods and people across a large temple economy. At the bottom, a summary figure of 24 units with a disbursement notation closes the account.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This tablet lists several distributions of goods or animals to different offices: 1 unit of a commodity to a ŠUBUR official; 7 units of highland livestock (MAŠE/goats?) of a particular grade; 3 units associated with a lord (EN) in the lion or warrior category; 1 lot of 3 sub-units to the temple administrator (SANGA); 5 units of another grade of ŠUBUR livestock; 7 units of beer or another liquid commodity (KAŠE) with a side-note. One line is lost. The final entry records a total of 24 units disbursed or delivered — probably the grand sum of the whole account.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

1 [unit], ŠUBUR — [type/quality] ŠA3 7 [units], MAŠE (goats?) — KUR (highland?) — ZATU773 3 [units], EN (lord/high official) — IB — PIRIG (lion-class?) 1 [unit], 3(N57) — SANGA (administrator/priest) 5 [units], ŠUBUR — ZATU795 — LAM 7 [units], KAŠE (beer?) — DA [...lost line(s)...] 2(N14) 4(N01) [= 24 units], BA — NIM (disbursed/delivered — highland?)

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

1(N01) , SZUBUR SZA3~a1
7(N01) , MASZ KUR~a ZATU773~a
3(N01) , EN~a IB~a# PIRIG~b1
1(N01) , 3(N57) SANGA~a
5(N01) , SZUBUR# ZATU795 LAM~b
7(N01) , KASZ~c DA~a
, [...]
2(N14) 4(N01) , BA NIM~a

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2357. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006025) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).

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