Position in chronology
MS 2502
About this tablet
This is one of the oldest types of written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), found in what is now southern Iraq. It records quantities of goods or commodities distributed to or managed by named offices or institutions, using the earliest known numerical notation system. The signs for officials or institutional roles (such as SANGA, a temple administrator) and disbursement markers (BA, 'distributed') show this is part of a temple or palace accounting system. At this early stage of writing, the script is not yet fully deciphered, making many sign readings tentative — but the overall structure of quantities followed by commodity or recipient signs is clear.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records several disbursements of goods in descending quantities: the largest entry lists an enormous quantity (5 large units, 5 medium units, 8 small units) associated with a storage or bundling notation and an uncertain commodity sign; a second entry records a somewhat smaller quantity distributed (BA = disbursed); a third assigns a quantity to a temple administrator (SANGA); a fourth records a quantity against what may be reed (GI); and a final summary or header line mentions an office or category name, a count of three large units, and additional institutional signs. Much of the precise meaning of the commodity and office signs remains unclear due to the early stage of this script.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5(N34) 5(N14) 8(N01) , [commodity/sign X] 1(N57) DUR~b LAGAB~b RAD~a 3(N34) 1(N14) 7(N01) , DUR~b BA 1(N34) 2(N14) , UR~a SANGA~a 1(N34) 2(N14) 1(N01) , GI [blank?] NAM2 ESZDA? 3(N57) PAP~a TE TUR
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(N34) 5(N14) 8(N01) , X 1(N57) DUR~b# LAGAB~b RAD~a 3(N34) 1(N14) 7(N01) , DUR~b BA 1(N34) 2(N14) , UR~a SANGA~a 1(N34) 2(N14) 1(N01) , GI , NAM2 ESZDA? 3(N57) PAP~a TE TUR
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC) ?) — MS 2502. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006069) — 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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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.