Position in chronology
MS 2868
About this tablet
This is a small cushion-shaped clay tablet from the proto-cuneiform (Uruk) period, covered on both faces with short lines pairing archaic number-signs with pictographic commodity or category signs — grain-stalks, circular tokens, a foot, an 'egg' sign, and others. It is almost certainly an administrative memorandum: an institution (very likely a temple, since the word SANGA — 'temple administrator' — appears in the closing line) recording quantities of goods, rations, or personnel under different headings. Tablets like this, some of the very first writing in human history (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), are not yet fully readable as language; they are proto-writing, a bookkeeping shorthand that predates full syntax, so much of the vocabulary here remains genuinely uncertain even to specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like an old accounting slip. It lists nine short entries, each giving a quantity followed by a sign standing for some kind of good, category, or person — things like 'egg-sign' paired with a grain-related term, 'milk (?) — large', and a few entries whose meaning we can't pin down (marked here with the raw sign names because their sense is lost to us). Some lines are damaged, cutting off whatever followed. The tablet ends by naming a 'sanga' — a temple administrator — probably identifying the official or institution responsible for the account, alongside two more unclear terms. In short: a very early temple or institutional inventory, tallying goods or people by category, from a time before writing recorded full sentences.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 8 (units, N34-count): “egg”-sign (NUNUZ) — barley-NAM2 (ŠE.NAM2, compound sign) 2. 8 (units, N34-count): GA-sign — GAL (“large/great”) 3. 3 (units, N34-count): NAM2 — PA — RAD — [...] (sign(s) broken/lost) 4. 2 (units, N34-count): DI — RAD 5. 1 (unit, N34-count): GIR3 (“foot”-sign) 6. 4 (units, N14-count) “egg”-sign (NUNUZ); 3 (units, N57-count): EN2.E2 (compound sign) 7. 1 (unit, N01-count): EŠDA 8. 2 (units, N48-count), 2 (units, N34-count), 4 (units, N14-count): “egg”-sign (NUNUZ) — NE 9. (no numeral given): SANGA — TE — RAD
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
8(N34) , NUNUZ~a1 |SZE~a.NAM2| 8(N34) , GA~a# GAL~a# 3(N34) , NAM2# PA~a# RAD~a# X [...] 2(N34) , DI RAD~a 1(N34) , GIR3~c 4(N14) , NUNUZ~a1 3(N57) |EN2.E2~b| 1(N01) , ESZDA 2(N48) 2(N34) 4(N14) , NUNUZ~a1 NE~a , SANGA~a TE RAD~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2868. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006198) — 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.