Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 100
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), recording quantities of barley distributed to or associated with specific institutional personnel — most likely a carpenter or craftsman, and a temple administrator. The tablet uses the round, impressed numerical notation characteristic of the very earliest writing, before individual signs had developed into the angular wedges most people associate with cuneiform. Its two faces record parallel but slightly different entries, possibly representing two separate allocations or a summary and a sub-total, making it a tiny window into the world's first bureaucratic record-keeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 5(×10) [units of] barley — BU~a, PAP~a, NAM2 [Delivered/brought] to [the store of] NI~a [and] BU~a NAGAR (carpenter/craftsman), ZI~a, temple administrator Reverse: 1(×60) 1(×3600) 5(×10) 4(×1) [units of] barley 6(×10) [units] [Delivered/brought] to [the store of] NI~a [and] BU~a NAGAR (carpenter/craftsman), temple administrator, ZI~a
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(N14)# , SZE~a BU~a PAP~a NAM2 DU SZE3 NI~a BU~a NAGAR~a ZI~a# SANGA~a# 1(N34) 1(N45) 5(N14) 4(N01) , SZE~a 6(N19) , DU SZE3 NI~a BU~a NAGAR~a SANGA~a# ZI~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 100. 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 (P325238) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-12/v4-interpretation).
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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The earliest historical document in human history.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.