Position in chronology
MS 2690
About this tablet
A fragment of one of the world's oldest written documents: a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period (around 3300–3000 BCE), possibly from Umma in southern Iraq. An administrator tallied textiles — linen and fine garments in ones and twos — apparently in connection with a settlement official (a 'sanga') and something involving a plow-team or an expedition. This is writing before literature and even before full sentences existed: pure bookkeeping, the very purpose for which writing was invented.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a torn page from a warehouse ledger, about five thousand years old. The readable entries record small quantities of cloth: one linen garment; two of something plus one fine-quality garment; further single items whose names are broken away. One line assigns goods to (or credits them from) the administrator of a settlement; another entry concerns a plow — perhaps supplies for a plowing team or a journey. The beginning and end of the account, and several entries in between, are broken off and lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Composite of obverse and reverse; the account is broken at beginning and end) 1. [...] , [...] ... (sign traces) 2. [...] , [...] 3. [...] , [...] textile(s) 4. [...] , [...] 5. 1 (unit) , linen (garment) 6. 2 (units) , 1 fine ...-garment(s) (SAL BAR) 7. — , (of/for) the settlement — the temple administrator (SANGA) 8. [...] , [...] textile(s) 9. [...] , [...] 10. 1 (unit) , [...] 11. 1 (unit) , 1 [...] ...-portion (BAR) 12. — , (for the) expedition/journey (of) the plow(-team) (KASKAL APIN) 13. [...] , [...] ... (sign traces)
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
[...] , [...] X [...] , [...] [...] , [...] TUG2~a# [...] , [...] 1(N01) , GADA~a# 2(N01) , 1(N57) SAL BAR , URU~a1 SANGA~a [...] , TUG2~a# [...] , [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01)# , 1(N01)# [...] BAR# , KASKAL APIN~a [...] , [...] X
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2690. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006111) — 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.