Position in chronology
MS 2358
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the very earliest forms of writing, made not long after the invention of the script itself (roughly the later 4th millennium BCE). It comes from southern Mesopotamia, possibly the city of Umma, and its case-by-case structure — a numeral followed by a short string of pictographic signs — is the hallmark of an early accounting record: quantities of barley, sheep, a donkey, and silver being tracked against people or categories whose exact roles (overseer, junior official, place of origin) are still debated by scholars. It is not a literary or historical text but a bookkeeping tablet, a glimpse of the bureaucratic machinery that accompanied the birth of writing.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like an old ledger page. Each entry starts with the number 1 and then a short string of picture-signs recording what was counted: one entry seems to note something 'received' by a junior person or official; another records barley given or deposited, marked with a sign that might mean 'horn' or could be a measuring term; another logs barley 'delivered' along with a plant or disbursement sign; another pairs barley with a cow; another lists a sheep and a donkey together; another combines barley with a sky or divine marker and another commodity sign. A closing line mentions silver, a place, and an overseer figure. Further down, a separate note records three units of barley (in a different counting system), followed by another line repeating the overseer, place, silver, and water/liquid signs. Altogether it reads like a tally of goods — grain, livestock, and silver — sorted by category or by the official responsible for each, though exactly who received what from whom is no longer recoverable.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) 1(N01) — ŠU, TUR, PAP: "1 [unit]: hand/received(?), small/junior, PAP (supervisory or total marker)" 1(N01) — ŠE, SI, RU: "1 [unit]: barley, horn(?), given/deposited" 1(N01) — BU, ŠE, DU: "1 [unit]: BU (plant/disbursement marker?), barley, delivered/in transit" 1(N01) — ŠE, X, AB2: "1 [unit]: barley, [illegible sign], cow(AB2)" 1(N01) — UDU, ANŠE: "1 [unit]: sheep, donkey/equid" 1(N01) — AN, EŠDA, ŠE: "1 [unit]: AN (sky/divine marker or commodity), EŠDA, barley" — KU3, KI, A, PA: "silver, place/location, water(?), PA (overseer/ration-category marker)" (continuing / final section) 3(N14) — ŠE: "3 [units, capacity measure]: barley" — PA, KI, KU3, A: "PA (overseer/ration marker), place/location, silver, water(?)"
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
1(N01) , SZU TUR PAP~a 1(N01) , SZE~a SI RU 1(N01) , BU~a SZE~a DU 1(N01) , SZE~a X AB2 1(N01) , UDU~a# ANSZE~c 1(N01) , AN ESZDA SZE~a , KU3~a KI A PA~a 3(N14) , SZE~a , PA~a KI KU3~a A
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2358. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006026) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.