Position in chronology
MS 2782/01
About this tablet
An administrative tablet from the Uruk period (late fourth millennium BCE), possibly from Umma in southern Iraq — among the very oldest written documents in the world. It is a tally: each surviving line begins with a single round numeral impression ('1') followed by a cluster of proto-cuneiform signs naming a person, office, or delivery — including the EN, the priest-ruler at the head of the archaic city institutions. Writing at this stage recorded accounting, not speech, so the entries read as bookkeeping labels rather than sentences. The tablet is badly broken, but it shows literacy in its original role: tracking goods and people for a temple or palace household.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a checklist, one item per line, each marked with a count of one. The readable entries run roughly: one — Uruk (or the sanctuary); one — the lord, head, 'divine'; one — a bird and beer; one — received, with further signs; one — another entry ending in 'water'; then several more single-unit entries too broken to read, one of them involving a supervisor and a 'hand' (receipt) sign. After a break, a final section adds another counted entry with a different numeral type and closes with a line naming the lord again, followed by two more signs. Most of the list is lost to damage, but what survives is a one-by-one tally of deliveries or personnel under named officials.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. 1(N01) — UNUG: 1 (unit/person): Uruk (the city/sanctuary sign) 2. 1(N01) — EN SAG AN: 1: the EN (lord/priest-ruler) — SAG (head/person) — AN (sky/divine) 3. 1(N01) — ZI MUŠEN KAŠ: 1: ZI — bird — beer 4. 1(N01) — ŠU |GIŠxŠU2| GIR3: 1: 'hand' (received?) — GIŠxŠU2 — GIR3 5. 1(N01) — ŠA TAK4 A: 1: ŠA — TAK4 — water 6. [...] — ... [...] 7. 1(N01) — [...]: 1: [...] 8. 1(N01) — ... [...]: 1: [...] 9. 1(N01) — PAP ŠU [...]: 1: PAP (elder/supervisor) — 'hand' [...] 10. 1(N01) — [...]: 1: [...] 11. 1(N01) — [...]: 1: [...] 12. [...] — [...] (Break) 13. [...] 1(N01) — 1(N57) ... [...]: [...] 1 — 1(N57) ... [...] 14. — EN KAL BU ... [...]: the EN (lord/priest-ruler) — KAL — BU [...]
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
1(N01)# , UNUG~a 1(N01) , EN~a SAG AN 1(N01) , ZI~a MUSZEN KASZ~c 1(N01) , SZU |GISZxSZU2~a| GIR3@g~b# 1(N01) , SZA# TAK4~a A [...] , X [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01) , X [...] 1(N01) , PAP~a# SZU# [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01)# , [...] [...] , [...] [...] 1(N01)# , 1(N57) X [...] , EN~a# KAL~b2 BU~a X [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2782/01. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006121) — 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.