Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 157
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing known to humanity. It records quantities of fish and other commodities — possibly alongside livestock or storage facilities — under the oversight of a temple administrator (SANGA). Tablets like this were the bureaucratic backbone of the ancient temple economy: scribes used them to track allocations, distributions, and stock in Mesopotamian institutional households. The reverse bears an impressed seal image of a bird (possibly an eagle or goose) over a running animal, typical of Uruk-period glyptic art used to authenticate records.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several batches of fish and related goods in varying quantities: four large measures of fish (category ZATU710), three large measures of a second commodity, managed under a temple administrator and associated with a cattle-fold. One entry notes a day's allocation or ration, another links fish of the ZATU710 type to a courtyard or storage area, and the final lines record a higher-order unit related to the cattle-fold and two smaller units distributed or divided from a second commodity category. Much of the precise meaning is lost because these are among the earliest written signs ever made, and their exact readings remain partially uncertain.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 [large units], fish (KU6), ZATU710 3 [large units], |ZATU714×HI| ME SANGA (temple administrator), TUR3 (cattle-pen/fold) 1 [large unit] 1 [medium unit], U4 (day/sun), GAR (ration/allocation) 1 [large unit] 1 [medium unit], ZATU710, fish (KU6), KISAL (courtyard/forecourt) 1 [higher unit], TUR3 (cattle-pen/fold), ME 2 [small units], ZATU710, HAL (division/apportionment), |ZATU714×HI|
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(N39~a)# , KU6~a ZATU710 3(N39~a)# , |ZATU714xHI@g~a| ME~a SANGA~a TUR3~b 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , U4 GAR 1(N39~a)# 1(N24) , ZATU710 KU6~a KISAL~b1 1(N14)# , TUR3~b ME~a 2(N01) , ZATU710# HAL# |ZATU714xHI@g~a|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 157. 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 (P325068) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
Related tablets
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.