Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 137
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from the Uruk period — one of the very earliest phases of writing, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — is an administrative or accounting record. It tracks quantities of goods (possibly grain, fuel, or foodstuffs) associated with a settlement or institution, with notations for consumption or disbursement. The signs for 'city/settlement' (URU), 'purchase/exchange' (SZAM2), and 'eating/consumption' (GU7) suggest it belongs to the vast bureaucratic machinery of early Mesopotamian temple or palace administration. The tablet is too damaged and its proto-cuneiform signs too incompletely understood to reconstruct a full, confident narrative, but it is a genuine piece of the world's oldest bookkeeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a large quantity sign followed by a break — the beginning is lost. What follows are several entries pairing numerical amounts with goods that appear to involve a fuel or fire-related commodity (NE~a) and something referred to as GUG2. Some entries are tied to a settlement or institutional locale. Two large units (N39~a) are associated with a body of water or an official title (AB~a), a fattening or split notation (BULUG3), the settlement, and a return or replacement (GI4~a). A final set of lines records consumption (GU7) at the settlement, a purchase or exchange (SZAM2) connected again to AB~a and a day-count, more consumption, and another exchange notation. The middle of the tablet is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N51) [...] 1(N28)[?], NE~a[?] GUG2 [X] , [...] 1(N14) , [...] 1(N28) , NE~a GUG2 1(N14) , [...] GUG2 URU~a1 2(N39~a) , AB~a BULUG3 URU~a1 GI4~a [...] 1(N03) [...] , [...] [X] URU~a1 GU7 URU~a1 SZAM2 AB~a[?] |U4×1(N01)| GU7 BULUG3 SZAM2[?] 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(N51) [...] 1(N28)# , NE~a# GUG2 X , [...] 1(N14) , [...] 1(N28) , NE~a GUG2 1(N14) , [...] GUG2 URU~a1 2(N39~a) , AB~a BULUG3 URU~a1 GI4~a [...] 1(N03) [...] , [...] X URU~a1 GU7 URU~a1 SZAM2 AB~a# |U4x1(N01)| GU7 BULUG3 SZAM2# GU7
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 137. 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 (P325063) — 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.