Position in chronology
MS 4504
About this tablet
This is a small clay accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3350–3100 BCE), one of the earliest phases of writing anywhere in the world, likely from the region of Umma in southern Iraq. It records tallies of oxen (GU4) sorted into administrative categories — some marked as 'plow' animals, others by an unidentified classifying sign — the kind of livestock bookkeeping that early temple or palace institutions kept to track draft animals for agricultural labor. The scribe used a numerical notation system of impressed circles and wedges rather than a phonetic script, since writing itself was still in its earliest, proto-literate form.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a livestock count. The top of the tablet is broken and illegible. Further down, an entry reads '1, [lost text]'; then '2 oxen, under the PA classification (perhaps an overseer or ration category)'; then a broken entry mentioning oxen designated for plow work; then '4 oxen, plow-designated'; then '6 oxen, marked with an unidentified sign (ZATU718)'; and finally a larger tally, '1 (a bigger counting unit), oxen, marked with that same unidentified sign, and also plow-designated.' In short: a record tallying groups of oxen — some assigned to plowing duty, others under classifications we can no longer read with certainty — from an early Mesopotamian institution keeping track of its draft animals.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) [...], [...] [...], [...] 1 (N01) — [...], X [...] (broken) 2 (N01) — PA~a (overseer/classifier), oxen [...], [...] X, oxen, plow(-designated) 4 (N01) — oxen, plow(-designated) 6 (N01) — oxen, ZATU718 (unidentified classifier) 1 (N14) — oxen, ZATU718 (unidentified classifier), plow(-designated)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N01)# , X [...] 2(N01)# , PA~a# GU4 [...] , [...] X GU4# APIN~a 4(N01) , GU4 APIN~a 6(N01) , GU4 ZATU718# 1(N14) , GU4 ZATU718# APIN~a#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4504. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006308) — 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.