MS 2504

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006072

About this tablet

One of the world's oldest written documents — a small clay tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), probably from Umma in southern Iraq. It is a livestock account: two entries of nine and seven animals on the front, totalled as sixteen on the back, with a handful of signs naming the commodity class, the responsible parties and a temple administrator. Writing at this date is not yet language on clay — it is bookkeeping, and only the numbers and a few institutional signs can be read with confidence. That a scribe five thousand years ago added 9 and 7 and wrote the answer on the reverse is itself the point: this is arithmetic and administration at the very beginning of literacy.

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

Written in modern English

Front: nine head of sheep, under the heading MAR~a / NA~a, category ZATU749~b; then seven more sheep of the same category. Three further short entries list ZATU821 with a GI-unit, NIN with SIG, and TE and RAD~a under the temple administrator. Back: total, sixteen sheep, entered with DUB~a and the same ZATU749~b designation, followed by a closing note reading SIG, NIN. The signs beyond the numerals and the sheep-sign cannot be given confident meanings in English — proto-cuneiform is not yet fully readable — but the accounting logic is plain: 9 plus 7 makes 16.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

Obverse 9 (units): MAR~a, NA~a(?), sheep (UDU~a), ZATU749~b. 7 (units): sheep (UDU~a), ZATU749~b. (—): ZATU821, GI. (—): NIN, SIG. (—): TE, RAD~a, the temple administrator (SANGA~a). Reverse 1(N14) 6(N01) — i.e. 16 (units): sheep (UDU~a), DUB~a, ZATU749~b. (—): SIG, NIN.

Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

9(N01) , MAR~a NA~a#? UDU~a ZATU749~b
7(N01) , UDU~a ZATU749~b
, ZATU821 GI
, NIN# SIG
, TE RAD~a SANGA~a
1(N14) 6(N01) , UDU~a DUB~a ZATU749~b
, SIG NIN

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2504. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006072) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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