Position in chronology
MS 2506
About this tablet
A small clay tablet from the very dawn of writing, around 3200–3000 BCE, probably from Umma in southern Iraq. It is a livestock-and-provisions account: sheep, ewes, rams and goat kids on one side of the ledger, and barley, beer, bread portions and a jar of oil on the other, each entry preceded by round and punched number impressions. The signs are proto-cuneiform — picture-like marks that do not yet spell out a language — so we can read the quantities and most of the commodities with confidence, but the closing group of signs on the reverse, probably the name of the responsible official or institution, cannot be pronounced or securely translated. Documents like this are the reason writing was invented: not literature, but accounting.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Livestock and supplies received or issued: 20 sheep, of which the ewes are counted separately; 3 rams; 2 goat kids. One line here is broken, ending in what may be a note that the goods were received. Then 10 units set down as consumed or disbursed, 3 units of barley, 5 more sheep, 1 measure of beer, 20 bread rations and one jar of oil. The reverse carries a short closing entry with no number attached — most likely the name of the office or official accountable for the whole account — but its signs cannot be read with certainty.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 2(N14) [= 20] — sheep — female (ewes) 3(N01) [= 3] — rams 2(N01)[?] [= 2] — kids (young goats) [...] — [...] ŠU ["received/in hand"(?)] — line broken 1(N14) [= 10] — consumed/disbursed (GU7), RAD(?) 3(N01) [= 3] — barley 5(N01) [= 5] — sheep 1(N01) [= 1] — beer 2(N14) [= 20] — bread/food portions (GAR) 1(N01) [= 1] — ŠITA-vessel, oil (NI) Reverse (subscript, no numeral) MUŠ3 — ME — LAL3 (syrup) — ŠUR2[?]
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
2(N14) , UDU~a , SAL 3(N01) , UDUNITA~a 2(N01)# , MASZ2 [...] , [...] SZU# 1(N14) , GU7 RAD~a? 3(N01) , SZE~a 5(N01) , UDU~a 1(N01) , KASZ~b 2(N14) , GAR 1(N01) , SZITA~a1 NI~a , MUSZ3~a ME~a LAL3~b SZUR2~a#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2506. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006074) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.