MS 4513

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006313

About this tablet

This is one of the earliest written records in human history, dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), probably from the city of Umma in southern Iraq. It is a small, rounded clay tablet recording numerical quantities assigned to or associated with named institutional roles and titles — figures such as the SANGA (a high temple administrator) and the EN (a lord or high priest), along with place-names like Kiš. These are administrative accounts of the kind that drove the very invention of writing: the need to track allocations, distributions, or obligations across an institution. The tablet belongs to a private Norwegian collection and preserves some of the world's oldest bureaucratic paperwork.

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 quantities assigned to different offices and categories: 11 units for the temple administrator of Kiš; 13 units for the lord at a specific location; 6 units each for 'wisdom/ear' and the 'prince-lord' compound office; 8 units for KAB; 12 units for the 'chief'; 3 units of a specific grain category under KAB; 3 units under a formula involving An and the lord. The final lines appear to record subtotals or a running count — 51 units, 15 units, and a large quantity (possibly 60-plus 6) tied to the Kiš location. Several entries are too ambiguous to read with certainty.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

11 [units] — SANGA (temple administrator/high priest) [of/at] Kiš 13 [units] — EN (lord/high-priest) [at a specific] place/location 6 [units] — GEŠTU (ear/wisdom) 6 [units] — NUN+EN (prince+lord compound) 8 [units] — KAB 12 [units] — GAL (great/chief) 3 [units] — ŠE.NAM₂ KAB (grain/barley [of a specific] category) 3 [units] — AN ŠU₂ EN (sky/An, covered/set, lord) 2 [large units] 51 [units] (total?) 15 [units] [1 very large unit +] 6 [units] — Kiš [location]

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

1(N14) 1(N01) , SANGA~a KISZ
1(N14) 3(N01) , EN~a KI
6(N01) , GESZTU~b
6(N01) , |NUN~a+EN~a|
8(N01) , KAB
1(N14) 2(N01) , GAL~a
3(N01) , |SZE~a.NAM2| KAB
3(N01) , AN SZU2 EN~a
2(N02) ,
5(N14) 1(N01) ,
1(N14) 5(N01) ,
1(N34) 6(N01) , KISZ KI

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC) ?) — MS 4513. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006313) — 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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