CUSAS 01, 015

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325355

About this tablet

This is one of the earliest written documents in human history, dating to the Uruk period in Mesopotamia (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), before writing had fully developed into a phonetic script. It is an administrative accounting tablet recording numbers of workers or commodities distributed through, or assigned to, a gate or portal of an institution. The final line appears to give a grand total with a disbursement marker, suggesting this is a summary of allocations — perhaps labor or goods — managed by a temple or large household. Tablets like this are among the first experiments in bureaucratic record-keeping, invented to manage the complex economies of the world's earliest cities.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This tablet records an institutional allocation — likely of workers or goods — organized by a gate or portal. The first entry tallies a large group (54 units) of male workers at the gate; subsequent lines record smaller groups received at, or through, the gate, along with an unidentified commodity and a city-linked category. One entry records a quantity of silver or precious metal. The final line gives what appears to be a grand total — 1(N48) 9(N34) 2(N14) 2(N01) — marked as disbursed through the gate. Several middle entries are damaged and cannot be fully read.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

5(N34) 4(N14) — ERIM~a (male workers), KA2~a (gate/portal) 2(N14) 2(N01) — KA2~a (gate), SZU (received/in hand of) 2(N34) — DU, |ZATU737xBUR~a| 3(N34) — URU~a1 (city), ZATU659, KA2~a (gate) 2(N34) — [...] KA2~a (gate) 3(N34) — [...] KA2~a (gate) 1(N51) 1(N14) — |6(N57).KU3~a| (silver/precious metal) 1(N34) 2(N14) — GISZ3~a, KA2~a (gate) KA2~a (gate) 1(N48) 9(N34) 2(N14) 2(N01) — BA (disbursed), NI~a, KA2~a (gate)

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

Transliteration

5(N34) 4(N14) , ERIM~a KA2~a
2(N14) 2(N01) , KA2~a SZU
2(N34) , DU |ZATU737xBUR~a|
3(N34) , URU~a1# ZATU659 KA2~a
2(N34) , [...] KA2~a
3(N34) , [...] KA2~a
1(N51) 1(N14) , |6(N57).KU3~a|
1(N34) 2(N14) , GISZ3~a KA2~a
KA2~a
1(N48) 9(N34) 2(N14) 2(N01) , BA NI~a KA2~a

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 015. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P325355) — 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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