Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 153
About this tablet
This small, rounded clay tablet from the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE — is one of the earliest administrative records in human history, predating the development of true writing. It appears to be an economic account listing quantities of animals or commodities under named officials or institutional categories, including signs that may refer to a high-ranking office-holder (EN) and a record-keeper (DUB/SANGA). The tablet is held at Cornell University and comes from an uncertain findspot, but its form and script are characteristic of the great southern Mesopotamian administrative tradition centred at Uruk. Its signs are proto-cuneiform — pictographic precursors to later Sumerian cuneiform — and many remain only partially deciphered.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records a series of quantities, each associated with a commodity or institutional category. One larger unit (N22) is noted against an entry for GUG2-KAŠE, with a disbursement marker; several single units (N01) follow, assigned to categories that may include a scribe or record-keeper, a basket or container, a high official (the EN), a livestock pen containing five animals, and other partially readable items. A higher-order number (N14) is recorded against an unidentified category. Several lines are too broken to read. The overall impression is a short institutional tally — goods received, held, or distributed — kept by an early Mesopotamian administrative office.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] [...] , NU11# [AN] [...] 1(N01) , AN# ŠA3~a1 UR2# [...] , [PA~a] KU3~a# A# [GISZ3~a] 1(N22) , GUG2 KAŠE~a BAR 1(N01) GUG2 1(N01) , ZATU776 X [...] , [...] 1(N01) , DUB~a SANGA~a 1(N01) , GA2~a1 ME~a EN~a ŠU DU 1(N01) , TUR3~a 5(N57) 2(N01)# ME~a DAR~b# PAP~a 2(N01) , AN# NU11# [...] 1(N14) , ZATU776 X A# HAL AL
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] , NU11# [AN] [...] 1(N01) , AN# SZA3~a1 UR2# [...] , [PA~a] KU3~a# A# [GISZ3~a] 1(N22) , GUG2 KASZ~a BAR 1(N01) GUG2 1(N01) , ZATU776 X [...] , [...] 1(N01) , DUB~a SANGA~a 1(N01) , GA2~a1 ME~a EN~a SZU DU 1(N01) , TUR3~a 5(N57) 2(N01)# ME~a DAR~b# PAP~a 2(N01) , AN# NU11# [...] 1(N14) , ZATU776 X A# HAL AL
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 153. 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 (P325192) — 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.