Position in chronology
MS 2863/23
About this tablet
This is a small fragment of an administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the very earliest phases of writing (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), reportedly from Umma in southern Iraq. It records a series of numbered entries — quantities followed by commodity or category signs — in the terse two-column ledger format typical of proto-cuneiform accounting, likely tracking rations, goods, or disbursements. Because the script is still proto-cuneiform (not yet fully phonetic writing), and the tablet is broken on most sides, many of the individual signs cannot be confidently translated into words; they can only be identified as commodity, quantity, or category markers whose exact referents remain debated among specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken clay tablet is an accounting record, so worn and fragmentary that only pieces of it survive. What we can make out are a string of short entries — a number, then a sign or two marking some kind of goods, person, or category — the standard shape of a bookkeeping list from this very early period of writing. One entry seems to mention a quantity handed out or allotted; others pair numbers with what may be containers, plant or animal products, or institutional labels, but the specific commodities being counted are lost to damage and to the sheer age of the script, which predates fully phonetic writing. The tablet breaks off before any totals or context survive.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse, broken at top) [...] , [...] IB [...] URI 3(N01) , [...] [x] [...] , [...] 1(N57) BA [x] SIG 2(N01) , [x] 1(N01) [...] , NUN(?) [...] [...] , [...] DA 1(N01) , U2 NUNUZ , NAM2 KAB [...] , [...] IB [...] , [...] [x] [...] , [...] [x] NI MA [...] , [...] A(?) GA2(?) [...] [...] , [...] (remainder broken)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] IB~a URI3~a 3(N01) , [...] X [...] , [...] 1(N57) BA X SIG 2(N01) , X 1(N01)# [...] , NUN~a#? [...] [...] , [...] DA~a# 1(N01) , U2~b NUNUZ~a1 , NAM2# KAB# [...] , [...] IB~a# [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] X NI~a MA [...] , [...] A#? GA2~a2#? [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2863/23. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006189) — 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.