Position in chronology
MS 2695
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from Uruk-period southern Mesopotamia, roughly 3100 BCE — among the very earliest writing on earth, predating fully developed Sumerian cuneiform by centuries. Its pictographic signs, arranged in ruled boxes with numeral impressions (small wedges and circular punches for different counting systems), form an inventory-style list of livestock, workers, officials, and disbursed goods rather than a connected narrative. Entries seem to record goats, sheep, birds, a 'minister' (sukkal), possibly dependent workers from the Subir region to the north, and deliveries to or from a place called Kisiga — the everyday bookkeeping of an early Mesopotamian institution or temple household. Because the script at this stage records only nouns and quantities without grammar, much of the precise sense of each entry remains genuinely irrecoverable.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like a tally sheet: a series of numbered entries recording goods and people passing through some institution's books. One line counts a goat and a man; another lists a group of workers — possibly from the Subir region to the north — described as 'mixed.' A minister or official (sukkal) is credited with two units delivered. Several entries record things being 'disbursed,' including a shipment connected to a place called Kisiga, and later possibly to Ur. Further down, sheep are counted again, along with mentions of a storehouse and additional quantities, but a number of signs are broken away or too worn to read, so the list breaks off incompletely in several places, especially toward the end.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 2 (units), billy-goat(?), man 1 (unit), AN, Subarian(s)/dependent workers, mixed 1 (unit), reed(?), bird, NA(?) 2 (units), minister (sukkal), given/deposited 3 (units) [...], green/verdant [...] [...], [...] 1 (unit), disbursed, Kisiga(?) , 1 (N57-unit) disbursed, IB(?), Ur(?) 1 (unit) [...], [illegible] [...] 1 (unit), AN, hand/total(?) 4 (units), green/verdant 1 (unit), NA(?), place/ground 2 (units), storehouse(?), base/seat, [...] [...], [...] mouth/opening(?) 4 (N14-units) 5 (N01-units), sheep, [sign ZATU819] [...]
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(N01)# , MASZ#? LU2 1(N01) , AN SZUBUR HI@g~a 1(N01) , GI MUSZEN NA~a 2(N01) , SUKKAL RU 3(N01)# [...] , SIG7# [...] [...] , [...] 1(N01) , BA# KISZIK~a? , 1(N57) BA IB~a URI3~a 1(N01)# [...] , X [...] 1(N01) , AN SZU2 4(N01) , SIG7 1(N01) , NA~a KI 2(N01) , GA2~a2 DUR2 X [...] , [...] KA~a 4(N14) 5(N01) , UDU~a ZATU819# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2695. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006116) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-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.