Position in chronology
CDLI Lexical 000026, ex. 056
About this tablet
A tiny, heavily broken fragment from one of the earliest administrative or lexical lists ever produced — a proto-cuneiform tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), possibly from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, now held in the Schøyen Collection in Oslo. Each line is structured identically: a single unit-tally sign followed by a commodity or category term, the classic format of early Mesopotamian accounting. The terms preserved — signs related to 'large,' 'hand/receipt,' and various commodity classifiers — suggest this is a portion of a standardized lexical or ration list, perhaps recording allocations of goods or categories of items. It belongs to the world's oldest bureaucratic tradition, from a time when writing was invented specifically to track economic transactions, not yet to record speech.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Each entry reads simply: one unit of [commodity]. The preserved commodities include a sign called SZAKIR~b (type unknown), entries for what may be 'large vessel/tool' combinations (GAL~a TUN3~a), entries involving receipt or hand-delivery with a quantity qualifier (SZU TUN3~a), and what may be an agricultural or implement category (AL). Several lines in the middle are completely lost. The final line tallies a larger number — thirty-four units — against an entry that is also broken away. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N01) , [X — damaged/unclear sign] 1(N01) , SZAKIR~b 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , SZU2 GU 1(N01) , SZU2 GU [...] 1(N01) , GAL~a TUN3~a 1(N01) , 2(N57) SZU TUN3~a 1(N01) , 1(N57) SZU TUN3~a 1(N01) , AL [...]? 1(N01) , [...] 1(N34) 4(N01) , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(N01) , X 1(N01) , SZAKIR~b 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , SZU2# GU# 1(N01) , SZU2# GU# [...] 1(N01) , GAL~a TUN3~a 1(N01) , 2(N57) SZU# TUN3~a 1(N01) , 1(N57)? SZU# TUN3~a 1(N01) , AL#? [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N34) 4(N01)# , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000026, ex. 056. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006172) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.