Position in chronology
MS 2997
About this tablet
This is a tiny fragment of an administrative tablet from the very earliest phase of writing, the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), likely from the Umma region in southern Iraq. It records a short list of entries — each combining a numeral notation with a string of pictographic signs — that most likely track quantities of a commodity or ration allotted to or overseen by named officials or institutional categories ('lord', 'overseer', 'house'). Because the script is proto-cuneiform, essentially still pictographic, and the tablet is broken at both ends, much of its precise bureaucratic meaning remains unrecoverable — it is a glimpse of accounting practice at the very dawn of writing rather than a fully legible document.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a damaged accounting tablet from one of the earliest writing systems ever used. What survives looks like a short list: several entries, each pairing a small number with a handful of pictographic terms that seem to name officials, categories of goods, or institutional units — a 'lord' here, an 'overseer' there, a 'house' or 'the land' elsewhere. The opening and a middle line are completely lost, and the final surviving line records the number 4 tied to more of the same terms before the text breaks off again. Because the signs are still close to pictures rather than fixed words, we can reconstruct the general shape of a bookkeeping entry, but not confidently say what was actually being counted or why.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Line 1) [...] , [...] (Line 2) SI4 (reddish/processed commodity) — EN (lord/high official) — TE (uncertain category) (Line 3) [...] , [...] (Line 4) 1(N01): SI (horn?) — KU — PA (overseer) — E2 (house/estate) (Line 5) 1(N01): SI4 (reddish/processed commodity) — GI (reed?) — IN — AN (sky/divine marker) — PA (overseer) (Line 6) KALAM (land/country) — PA (overseer) — BU (Line 7) 1(N01): SI (horn?) — LAGAB — AN (sky/divine marker) — SAG (head) — GI (reed?) (Line 8) [...] , [...] (Line 9) 4(N14): SI4 (reddish/processed commodity) — EN (lord/high official) — RAD (uncertain)@g [...]
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
[...] , [...] , SI4~f EN~a TE [...] , [...] 1(N01) , SI KU~b1 PA~a E2~b 1(N01) , SI4~f GI IN~b AN PA~a , KALAM~a PA~a BU~a 1(N01) , SI LAGAB~a AN SAG GI [...] , [...] 4(N14) , SI4~f EN~a RAD~a@g [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2997. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006254) — 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.