CUSAS 01, 138

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325195

About this tablet

An administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), one of the earliest phases of writing in human history. It records quantities of containers or vessels of different types alongside entries for fish, persons, and what may be a ration allocation — the sort of inventory or disbursement record kept by a temple or storage institution. The signs are proto-cuneiform, predating fully readable Sumerian, so many entries can be identified by category (vessels, fish, persons) but not fully parsed as sentences. Tablets like this are the very birth of bureaucracy: administrators developing writing not for literature but for counting and tracking goods.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

One large unit of goods: two types of storage containers. Two jars of one type, two of another, one smaller jar. One additional entry records a heap or storage mound. Five-plus entries record persons or heads (likely workers or recipients). Two entries record a ration or food allocation. Then come damaged signs that may read 'AN BA' — possibly a disbursement notation — followed by a reference to fish. The rest of the tablet is too broken or worn to read.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

1(N14) [large unit]: storage-vessel(?) / container-type A, container-type B 2(N01): jar(s) of type DUG~c 2(N01): SZEN-type vessel(s) 1(N01): DUG-type jar 1(N01) + 1(N26): mound/heap [DU6] 5(N01) + 1(N29~a): head(s)/person(s) [SAG] 2(N01) + [...]: ration/allocation [GAR] [damaged sign(s)]: AN BA [...]: fish [...] [remainder lost or too damaged to read]

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) , |LAGAB~axSZA|# |LAGAB~axSZITA~a1|
2(N01) , |DUG~cx1(N58)|
2(N01) , SZEN~a#
1(N01) , DUG~a#
1(N01)# 1(N26) , DU6~a
5(N01)# 1(N29~a)# , SAG
2(N01)# [...] , GAR#
X? AN# BA
[...] , KU6~a# [...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 138. 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 (P325195) — 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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