Position in chronology
MS 4486
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), among the very earliest writing in human history — pictographic signs impressed and incised into ruled cells rather than a connected sentence. It appears to be a tally sheet recording quantities of barley, fish, and small livestock (sheep, and stock kept in a pen or fold) distributed among several people identified not by personal names as we'd expect later, but by titles or kin-terms like 'brother' and 'exalted,' alongside a few sign-groups that function as names but remain undeciphered. Found reportedly at Umma, it is the kind of household or institutional bookkeeping record — grain rations and animal allotments tracked case by case — that lies at the very root of accounting and, ultimately, of writing itself.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a very early accounting record. On one side, someone logs an amount of barley, then several entries of fish (possibly carp) — one marked as 'disbursed' — followed by allotments credited to people called 'brother' and 'exalted,' with a couple of names or titles too damaged or unfamiliar to translate confidently. The reverse continues the tally: stock kept in an animal pen, more fish, another unread name-sign, a place called UZ, a sheep entry, more pen-stock, and a final compound sign followed by the word for 'year' or 'name.' Because the script is at the very earliest, pictographic stage of cuneiform, several individual signs cannot yet be read with certainty, and parts of the text are broken away — but the overall shape is that of a routine tally of grain and animals allotted to named or titled recipients.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 1. 1(N39~a) 1(N57) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N26), barley (ŠE) 2. 2(N01), carp(?)-fish: disbursed (BA) 3. 3(N01), 4(N57) carp(?)-fish 4. 1(N08) 1(N57) 1(N08), [entry:] "brother," exalted, GIR(-sign) 5. 2(N01), "brother," [sign ZATU714], [compound sign ZATU759×fish] 6. 3(N08)+ [...], "brother," exalted 7. [...], [...] carp(?) fish Reverse: 8. 2(N14), cattle-pen(?) [sign AB~b], double-fish sign, 1(N02) 9. 1(N01), [sign ZATU846], 1(N02) 10. 2(N01), place/locative: UZ 11. 1(N01), sheep, exalted-X (compound) 12. 1(N08), cattle-pen(?), GIR(-sign) 13. 4(N08), SUKUD+SUKUD compound, X 14. [entry:] MU ("year"/"name")
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
1(N39~a) 1(N57) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N26) , SZE~a 2(N01) , SUHUR BA 3(N01) , 4(N57) SUHUR 1(N08) 1(N57) 1(N08) , MU SZESZ~a MAH~a GIR~b 2(N01) , SZESZ~a ZATU714 |ZATU759xKU6~a| 3(N08)# [...] , SZESZ~a MAH~a [...] , [...] SUHUR#? KU6~a 2(N14) , AB~b |KU6~a+KU6~a| 1(N02) 1(N01) , ZATU846 1(N02) 2(N01) , KI@n UZ~a 1(N01) , UDU~a |MAH~axX| 1(N08) , AB~b GIR~b 4(N08) , |(SUKUD+SUKUD)~b| X , MU
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4486. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006289) — 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.