Position in chronology
MS 4462
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), probably originating from the region of Umma in southern Iraq. It is one of the earliest forms of writing ever produced — not yet a language in the full sense, but a system of signs and numerals used to record quantities of commodities: animals (ewes, she-goats), agricultural equipment (plows), and other goods whose exact nature is now lost in lacunae. The tablet is part of the Schøyen Collection (MS 4462) and illustrates how accounting, not literature, drove the invention of writing. Its fragmentary state and archaic sign forms make precise reading genuinely difficult even for specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives of this tablet reads as a tally of goods: two entries related to days or sun-periods, two plows, nine of some category involving the signs for sky and judgment, three garden plots (one perhaps with grain), one lion-related entry alongside a troop or enemy count, one entry for a standard or pole, six ewes, and forty-six she-goats. Several lines are too broken to read. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] [...] 2 , [...] sun/day [...] 2 , plow [...] 9 , [sign group: NA AN DI AN] [...] 3 , [...] [leather/hide object?] 1 , lion-[type] + troops/enemy 3 , garden + [garden with grain?] [...] 1 , [...] head [...] 1 , DA + [ZATU710] , standard/pole + IB [...] 6 , ewes 4(×10) 6 [= 46] , she-goats [...] , [...] [...] 4 [...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] 2(N01)# , [...] U4# [...] 2(N01)# , APIN~a [...] 9(N01)# , NA~a AN# DI AN [...] 3(N01)# , [...] KUSZU2~c#? 1(N01) , PIRIG~b1 ERIM~a 3(N01) , SAR~a |SAR~axSZE~a| [...] 1(N01)# , [...] SAG# [...] 1(N01) , DA~a ZATU710 , URI3~a IB~a [...] 6(N01) , U8# 4(N14) 6(N01) , UD5~a# [...] , [...] [...] 4(N01)# [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4462. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006283) — 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.