Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 115
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest administrative records in human history, dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE) in ancient Iraq — a time when writing had only just been invented. A temple official or scribe recorded quantities of barley allocated to different offices or individuals, including a reference to the city of Uruk itself and a temple administrator. The final line tallies a total quantity of grain designated as 'consumed' — the disbursed ration. Such tablets are the direct forerunners of all later accounting and writing systems, and they show that literacy arose not from literature or religion but from the urgent need to track grain and goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Several allocations of barley are listed here, each assigned to a different official or institutional category — one linked to Uruk, one to a temple administrator, and others whose labels are now lost or damaged. A separate entry records a quantity of fresh or new barley stored in a grain bin, another notes barley measured against fish, and a further entry concerns timber or wooden goods alongside what may be a silver or purity notation. A running heap of grain is also tallied. The final line gives the grand consumption figure: the total quantity of barley issued as rations. The middle section is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N14) [units], barley — allocated — [official/title: GIŠ×ŠU2] 1(N14) [units], barley — allocated — [official/title: clay/tablet?] 1(N14) [units], barley — allocated — [official/title: NAGA] 1(N14) [units], barley — allocated — [...] 2(N14) [units], barley — allocated — [official/title: UNUG (Uruk)] [...] [units], [...] — temple administrator (SANGA) [...] [units], [...] 1(N39~a) 1(N24) [units], barley — corner/bin — new/fresh (GIBIL) 1(N01) [unit], barley — fish (KU6) 1(N04) [units], [timber/wood] — branch/frond — silver/pure (KU3) 1(N19) [units] [...] [units], [...] 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) [units], grain heap (LAGAB) — barley 1(N19) 1(N04) [units], [...] 1(N19) 1(N04) 1(N14) 3(N01) 3(N39~a) 1(N24) [units], barley — consumed/ration (GU7)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
1(N14) , SZE~a# GAR# |GISZxSZU2~a| 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR IM~a 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR NAGA~a 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR [...] 2(N14) , SZE~a# GAR# UNUG~b [...] , [...] SANGA~a [...] , X 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a UB GIBIL 1(N01) , SZE~a# KU6~a 1(N04) , GISZ3~b PA~a KU3~a 1(N19) [...] , [...] 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , LAGAB~b SZE~a 1(N19)# 1(N04)# , [...] 1(N19) 1(N04) 1(N14)# 3(N01)# 3(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a# GU7
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 115. 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 (P325070) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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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.