Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 030
About this tablet
A small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), recording quantities of female workers or females of some category, distinguished apparently by a highland or foreign-provenance marker (KUR~a) and by age or status sub-categories (possibly including young animals or juveniles, AMAR). The closing lines name institutional officials — a sanga (temple administrator), an EN (lord or institutional head), and a PAP (elder or supervisor) — alongside a total figure and a document type marker (DUB, 'tablet'). It is one of the world's earliest bureaucratic records, tracking people or livestock in a large temple economy before a true writing system had fully developed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet tallies several groups: 9 females; 62 of the highland/foreign category; 1 female of one sub-type; 2 of another highland sub-type; and 2 young highland animals or persons of a third grade — followed by a line recording natron or a related commodity. The grand total reads 124 (units), attributed to the oversight of a Kisz-official, an elder, an EN-lord, a temple administrator (sanga), and a tablet-keeper. Two further large units are assigned to the RAD category. The rest is partially damaged.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine9 (units), SAL (women/females) 1(×60) 2 (units), KUR~a (highland/foreign) 1 (unit), |U4×2(N57)| SAL (women/females) 2 (units), KUR~a |U4×2(N57)| 2 (units), AMAR KUR~a |U4×1(N57)| NAGA~a 2(×60) 4 (units)#, KISZ PAP~a# EN~a# SANGA~a DUB~a 2 (large units)#, RAD~a
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
9(N01) , SAL 1(N14) 2(N01) , KUR~a 1(N01) , |U4x2(N57)| SAL 2(N01) , KUR~a |U4x2(N57)| 2(N01) , AMAR KUR~a |U4x1(N57)| NAGA~a 2(N14) 4(N01)# , KISZ PAP~a# EN~a# SANGA~a DUB~a 2(N02)# , RAD~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 030. 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 (P325164) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.
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.