Position in chronology
MS 4563
About this tablet
This is one of the oldest written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE, probably from the city of Umma in southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities — most clearly fish and barley, with references to a courtyard or forecourt and a storehouse — in the numerical notation system that preceded true writing. The circular and wedge impressions visible on the clay are not yet a full writing system but an administrative shorthand developed by temple or palace bureaucrats to track goods moving through an institution. Its survival gives us a direct glimpse into the bookkeeping that underpinned the world's earliest urban economy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet tracks several consignments of goods: 70 units of fish associated with a courtyard; entries of 20 units each against categories that are now damaged or unclear; 60 units linked to a storehouse; and several smaller entries of 2 or 1 unit whose commodity labels are partly broken away. Near the bottom, a reference to silver or precious metal appears, and the final summary line records a large total — in the thousands of units — of barley alongside a water or liquid sign. The middle section of the tablet is too damaged to read in full.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine7(N14) [= 70], courtyard (KISAL), fish (KU6); X 2(N01) [= 2], X X; 2(N14) [= 20], X X; 2(N14) [= 20], MAR, ZAG[?]; 6(N14) [= 60], storehouse (E2), X; 2(N01)[?], [...] X; [...] 2(N01), X [...]; 1(N01), X [...]; — SAR, X, silver/pure metal (KU3)[?]; 2(N45) 4(N01) [total], barley (ŠE), TAK4, water/liquid (A);
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
7(N14) , KISAL~b1# KU6~a# X 2(N01) , X X 2(N14) , X X 2(N14) , MAR~a ZAG~a#? 6(N14) , E2~a X 2(N01)? , [...] X [...] 2(N01)# , X [...] 1(N01)# , X [...] , SAR~a X KU3~a# 2(N45) 4(N01) , SZE~a TAK4~a A ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4563. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006332) — 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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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.