Position in chronology
MS 2782/08
About this tablet
This is a small fragment of an administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the late 4th millennium BCE), one of the very earliest phases of writing in Mesopotamia — proto-cuneiform, before signs had fixed phonetic values. It appears to record a transaction involving a counted commodity (possibly a bird, oil/fat product, or a rationed good) with a disbursement notation, but most of the entries are broken away. Texts like this come from the earliest bureaucratic record-keeping of Uruk-period city administrations, tracking goods, animals, or labor allotments — the origin point of accounting itself, from which writing as a technology gradually developed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken record lists at least one entry: a quantity of '1' next to a string of signs that may name a bird (perhaps a partridge), an oil or fat product, and an unclear marker — followed by a notation that something was issued or distributed. A further line seems to mention a legal or verdict-related sign alongside another unidentified term. The rest of the tablet — several more lines on what would have been the reverse or continuing columns — is too damaged to read; only scattered, isolated signs survive.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineCase 1: [...], [...] (sign broken/illegible) Case 2: 1(N01) unit, DAR~a NI~a DA~a Case 3: BA (disbursed/allotted) Case 4: [...], [...] DI ... (sign) RAD~a Case 5: [...], [...] (sign broken) Case 6: [...], [...] (broken) Case 7: [...], [...] (broken) Case 8: [...], (sign) [...] (broken)
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
[...] , [...] X 1(N01) , DAR~a NI~a DA~a , BA [...] , [...] DI X RAD~a [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , X [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2782/08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006128) — 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.