Position in chronology
MS 2782/01
About this tablet
This is a small clay fragment from Uruk-period southern Mesopotamia (roughly the later 4th millennium BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing anywhere in the world. It appears to be an administrative tally — a series of short entries, each opening with the numeral 'one', followed by two or three pictographic signs naming a person, title, commodity (beer, birds), or place (Uruk). Because the script is proto-cuneiform, before writing recorded full sentences, we can identify the individual word-signs but not the grammar linking them — it reads more like a list of accounting line-items than connected prose. The tablet is broken on several sides, so much of the record is lost.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like an old inventory or ration list. The surviving lines each record a quantity of one unit against a short label: one entry tied to the city of Uruk, one naming a lord or official together with a 'head' and a sky/divine marker, one for a bird along with beer, one involving a hand-gesture sign paired with a foot sign, and one mentioning a 'remainder' allocation of water. After that the tablet breaks off, and several following entries are too damaged to read beyond the fact that each still begins with 'one unit' and includes a supervisory or totaling mark (PAP) and a 'hand' sign. Near the end, another numeral appears next to unreadable signs, and the final surviving line again names a lord or official alongside two more signs before the text is lost. Because this is one of the earliest writing systems, the exact meaning of many of these word-signs remains uncertain even where they are legible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (unit): Uruk (UNUG) 1 (unit): the lord/high official (EN), head (SAG), AN (sky / divine marker) 1 (unit): ZI-bird(s) (MUŠEN), beer (KAŠ) 1 (unit): hand/disbursement (ŠU), [compound sign GIŠ×ŠU2], foot/GIR3 1 (unit): ŠA, remainder/leftover allocation (TAK4), water (A) [...]: X [...] (break) 1 (unit): [...] (break) 1 (unit): X [...] (break) 1 (unit): PAP (supervisor/totaling marker), hand (ŠU) [...] (break) 1 (unit): [...] (break) 1 (unit): [...] (break) [...]: [...] (break) [...] 1 (unit): 1(N57) X [...] (break) the lord/high official (EN), KAL (strong/mighty?), BU-sign, X [...] (break)
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
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-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.