Position in chronology
MS 2680
About this tablet
One of the world's earliest accounting documents: a small clay tablet from the Uruk period (late fourth millennium BCE), possibly from Umma in southern Iraq, recording livestock and grain in the archaic proto-cuneiform script. The surviving entries count young goats and sheep — including a large total of 126 animals — alongside a barley notation, the kind of tally an institutional administrator kept before writing could yet record spoken language. Its badly worn surface preserves only fragments of what was once a routine ledger of herds under central management.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a badly damaged account of animals and grain. The readable entries say roughly: two of something under the NUN category; two young goats; one of something; one more of something; then a line too broken to read. A large-number section follows: sixty units connected with an allotment of barley, and a total of 126 sheep, with the final entry too damaged to make out. In modern terms, it is a stock ledger — an official noting how many goats and sheep passed through his hands, and a grain figure alongside them, with most of the surrounding detail now worn away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. [...] 2 (units) ..., NUN-b (category marker) [...] 2. [...] 2 (units) ..., young goats (MAŠ₂) 3. 1 (unit) ..., ... [...] 4. 1 (unit) ..., ... [...] 5. [...] , [...] Reverse(?) 6. 60 (1 N34) , [...] ... allotted(?) ... barley ... [...] 7. 126 (2 N34 + 6 N01) [...] , sheep [...] 8. [...] , [...] ...
Our translation engine — Fable 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(N01)# , NUN~b# [...] [...] 2(N01)# , MASZ2# 1(N01)# , X [...] 1(N01)# , X [...] [...] , [...] 1(N34) , [...] X BA SZE~a X [...] 2(N34)# 6(N01)# [...] , UDU~a# [...] [...] , [...] X
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2680. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006101) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-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.