Position in chronology
MS 4483
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from the Uruk period — among the very earliest writing in human history, dating to roughly 3100–3000 BCE — is an administrative account recording quantities of rations, fish, and possibly livestock distributed or allocated at a Sumerian institution. The notation 'MU BA' at the end likely marks it as a year-disbursement record. Tablets like this were the bureaucratic backbone of the world's first cities: not literature, not religion, but the everyday arithmetic of feeding workers and managing institutional stores. Its probable origin is the city of Umma in southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a series of allocations: 3 units of rations issued, then 1 large unit plus 4 fractional units of rations, followed by 5 units of fish (measured), 1 unit of what may be a donkey or sheep, 1 further measured unit of goods, another 5 units of fish, and then 1 and 2 units of commodities whose exact nature the signs no longer make clear. The final surviving notation marks this as a year-disbursement — an annual distribution record. The last lines are blank or too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 [units], rations allocated 1 [large unit], 4 [fractional units], rations allocated 5 [units], [type of] fish, measured 1 [unit], donkey? / sheep? 1 [unit], [commodity], measured 5 [units], fish, measured 1 [unit], [sign DU8, function unclear] 2 [units], [compound sign SZAxHI, meaning unclear] [MU BA — 'year of disbursement' / distribution notation] [remainder lost or blank]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(N01) , U4 GAR 1(N14) , 4(N57) GAR 5(N01) , NE~a#? KU6~a SILA3~a 1(N01) , ANSZE~b? UDU~a#? 1(N01) , UR2 SILA3~a 5(N01) , KU6~a SILA3~a 1(N01) , DU8@g~c#? 2(N01) , |(SZAxHI@g~a)~a|? , MU BA , ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4483. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006286) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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.