MS 2506

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006074

About this tablet

This small clay tablet is a proto-cuneiform administrative record from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3100 BCE), probably from the Umma region of southern Iraq — among the very earliest writing in human history. It is an inventory or ration list: quantities of sheep, ewes, rams and goats alongside barley, beer, bread and a vessel of oil, each entry written as a numeral sign paired with a commodity pictogram, without grammar or verbs as we know them. A scribe managing a temple or institutional household kept track of livestock and foodstuffs this way, decades before writing could record connected sentences. The closing line on the reverse likely names an official, category, or totals the transaction, but its exact meaning remains debated.

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

Written in modern English

This is an old inventory tally: two sheep, some ewes, three rams, two goats — then a gap where the tablet is broken and a sign for 'received' or 'in hand' is barely legible. After the break, one unit is recorded as consumed or issued out, alongside three units of barley, five sheep, one measure of beer, two units of bread, and one vessel containing oil or fat. The tablet closes with a short notation — likely a category label, an official's designation, or a summary tag — but the final sign is too damaged to read with confidence. In short: a bookkeeper's list of animals and provisions moving through a household or temple storeroom, with the very end of the record lost to wear.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

Obverse: 1. 2(N14) — sheep 2. — female (ewe) 3. 3(N01) — rams (male sheep) 4. 2(N01) — goats 5. [...] [...] — hand/receipt (sign broken) 6. 1(N14) — consumed/disbursed: RAD (sign uncertain) 7. 3(N01) — barley 8. 5(N01) — sheep 9. 1(N01) — beer 10. 2(N14) — bread/rations 11. 1(N01) — šita-vessel(?) with oil/fat (NI) Reverse (summary/closing entry): 12. — MUŠ₃ — ME — LAL₃ — ŠUR₂ (damaged at end)

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

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-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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