Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 099
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest written documents in human history, dating to around 3200–3000 BCE from the Uruk period in ancient Mesopotamia. It is an administrative accounting tablet recording quantities of barley and other commodities distributed to or collected from various institutional personnel — including a musician, a messenger or foot-official, and a high-status figure called EN (lord). The reverse face is largely blank or very lightly inscribed, typical of these early tablets. It is a vivid example of the very first writing: not poetry or literature, but bureaucratic bookkeeping that helped a complex urban institution track who received what.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 (units), barley — [storage/date field unit]; 1 (large unit), barley — given/deposited (RU); 1 (large unit), barley; 2 (large units), barley — seed, BU~a; 1 (extra-large unit) 5 (large units), barley; 1 (large unit) 3 (units), barley — storehouse; RU (given/deposited); 1 (extra-large unit) 1 (large unit), water(?) — singer/musician (NAR); 3 (large units), [commodity ZATU773] — foot-traveller/messenger (GIR3); 2 (large units), DU (brought/deliveries); 1 (large unit) 4 (units), young (TUR) — timber/wood (GISZ3); 4 (large units), [city/settlement] (URU×KI) — EN (lord/high official); 3 (large units) 2 (units), PAP~a BU~a [NAM2] — barley; [...], [broken] SAR~a NIR~b — city/settlement (URU).
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(N01) , SZE~a |U4x2(N57)| 1(N14) , SZE~a RU 1(N14) , SZE~a 2(N14) , SZE~a NUMUN BU~a 1(N45) 5(N14) , SZE~a 1(N14) 3(N01) , SZE~a E2~a RU 1(N45) 1(N14) , A# NAR 3(N14) , ZATU773~a GIR3@g~b 2(N14) , DU 1(N14) 4(N01) , TUR GISZ3~b 4(N14) , |URU~a1xKI| EN~a 3(N14) 2(N01) , PAP~a BU~a [NAM2] SZE~a [...] , X SAR~a# NIR~b URU~a1
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 099. 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 (P325233) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation).
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.