Position in chronology
MS 4489
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3350–3100 BCE), one of the earliest forms of writing in the world. It is not a sentence in any language but an accounting notation — rows of number-signs paired with pictographs standing for commodities and institutional categories, likely barley, fish, and other goods tracked in or out of storage areas such as a 'cattle-stall' or 'courtyard.' Tablets like this come from the very beginnings of bookkeeping, when signs recorded quantities and things but not yet grammar or verbs — the scribe was simply keeping count.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a tally sheet, not a story. Line by line it records small quantities of goods against pictorial category-marks: three units of an unidentified commodity; two-plus-one units tied to what seems to be a cattle-stall or storage category; one unit of something marked with the sign BAR; a quantity of barley; a repeat entry of two-plus-one units again tied to the cattle-stall category; one unit of a bead-or-stone-like commodity (GUG2); more barley and 'mixed' entries; and a closing line pairing barley, a 'mixed' designation, fish, and a courtyard or storehouse. In short: a scribe's running count of grain, fish, and other goods moving through an institutional storage system, written in symbols centuries before writing could form full sentences.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 3(N01) — [sign ZATU710] (unidentified commodity) 2. 2(N39) 1(N24) — [commodity marked] cattle-stall/institutional category (AB), [compound sign LAGABxBIR3?], GAR 3. 1(N24) — BAR(?)-marked item, [compound sign ŠAxḪI?] 4. — barley (ŠE)(?) 5. 2(N39) 1(N24) — [commodity marked] cattle-stall/institutional category (AB), [compound sign LAGABxBIR3?], GAR 6. 1(N39) — GUG2(?) (bead/stone-commodity?) 7. 1(N24) — [compound sign ŠAxḪI] 8. — mixed (ḪI) 9. 3(N01) — [sign ZATU710], horn (SI), ME(?) 10. 1(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39) — barley (ŠE) 11. 4(N39) — mixed (ḪI) 12. 1(N14) 2(N01) 1(N39) — barley (ŠE), mixed (ḪI), fish (KU6), courtyard/storage-area (KISAL)
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
3(N01) , ZATU710 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , AB~a |LAGAB~axBIR3~b|? GAR 1(N24) , BAR#? |(SZAxHI@g~a)~a|#? , SZE~a#? 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , AB~a |LAGAB~axBIR3~b|? GAR 1(N39~a) , GUG2? 1(N24) , |(SZAxHI@g~a)~a| , HI@g~a 3(N01) , ZATU710 SI ME~a 1(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39~a) , SZE~a 4(N39~a) , HI@g~a 1(N14) 2(N01) 1(N39~a) , SZE~a HI@g~a KU6~a KISAL~b1
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4489. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006292) — 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.