Position in chronology
MS 3153
About this tablet
This is one of the oldest types of written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), found somewhere in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq or Iran). It records quantities of people or commodities under institutional labels: a high-status official (EN), a group of male workers (ERIM), and persons categorized as KISZ and SAL (possibly categories of workers or dependents, including women). Tablets like this are among the very first experiments in writing, invented not for literature or religion but for the mundane needs of large temple institutions tracking labor and goods. The number signs pressed into the clay with a round stylus are the direct ancestors of the cuneiform script that would dominate the ancient Near East for three thousand years.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet tallies several groups of people under different institutional labels. One entry records a large number (2 high units + 5 middle units) associated with a 'KUR' category and a KISZ designation. Another records 3 high units + 2 middle units + 3 small units under KISZ and SAL (likely women or a female category). A further entry logs 5 high units + 2 middle units + 1 small unit assigned to the EN (a high official or lord). Then 5 middle units + 2 small units are listed for ERIM (male workers). The final entry gives 6 high units + 1 middle unit + 3 small units under KISZ again. In short: this is a workforce or population count, broken down by category of person and institutional affiliation.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2(N34) 5(N14) — KUR~a, KISZ 3(N34) 2(N14) 3(N01) — KISZ, SAL 5(N34) 2(N14) 1(N01) — EN~a 5(N14) 2(N01) — ERIM~a 6(N34) 1(N14) 3(N01) — KISZ
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N34) 5(N14) , KUR~a KISZ 3(N34) 2(N14) 3(N01) , KISZ SAL 5(N34) 2(N14) 1(N01) , EN~a 5(N14) 2(N01) , ERIM~a 6(N34) 1(N14) 3(N01) , KISZ
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC) ?) — MS 3153. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252164) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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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.