Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 090
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE) is one of the world's earliest surviving written records — a terse proto-cuneiform administrative log tracking quantities of barley and beer against institutional categories, probably kept by a storehouse scribe at a large temple or palace complex. Its two parallel sections may track the same commodities across two accounting periods or two source categories. One sign, ZATU788, remains entirely undeciphered after more than a century of scholarship — a vivid reminder that significant portions of humanity's earliest writing are still beyond our grasp. The closing line records that one small measure was consumed or formally disbursed, a routine closing entry that closes the account.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two large consignments of barley are logged under a heading that includes reference to eggs or offspring and an institutional category that scholars still cannot read (ZATU788). Three medium measures of barley came from or through Uruk and were listed as mixed stock; three smaller measures are recorded as beer. A time or tally marker follows, and then a sign too worn to identify. The second section mirrors the first in smaller quantities — the same institutional barley categories, a reduced beer entry — and closes with a single small measure marked as consumed or officially disbursed. One line in each section is damaged and cannot be read with certainty.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Section I] 2 [large measures] — barley: [AN], eggs/spawn, [ZATU788] 3 [medium measures] — barley from/of Uruk, mixed 3 [small measures] — [institutional category], beer [1(N41) uncertain] 1(N28) — [time/tally marker] + 2 count [illegible sign] [Section II] 2 [medium measures] — [AN], eggs/spawn, [ZATU788] 3 [small measures (uncertain)] — from/of Uruk, mixed 2 [units] — [time/tally marker] + 1 count, [institutional category] 1 [small measure] — consumed / ration disbursed
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N14) , SZE~a AN NUNUZ~a1 ZATU788 3(N01) , SZE~a TA~c UNUG~a HI 3(N04) , AB~a KASZ~b 1(N41)# 1(N28) , |U4x2(N01)| , X 2(N19) , AN NUNUZ~a1 ZATU788 3(N04)# , TA~c UNUG~a HI 2(N41) , |U4x1(N01)| AB~a , 1(N04) GU7
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 090. 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 (P325061) — 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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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.