Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 160
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing in human history. It records the allocation or disbursement of food rations, timber, and ceramic vessels to or from institutional officials — likely a temple administrator (SANGA) and a high-status official (EN). The final entry appears to record a disbursement involving a storehouse or institutional 'mother-house.' These tablets are not literature but bureaucratic tallies — the ancient equivalent of a ledger entry — and they document the managed economy of the world's first cities in southern Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four units of bread (or food rations) go to the temple administrator. Two units of timber also go to the temple administrator. Two units are assigned to the high official (EN), and another two units to [a category now too damaged to read]. The next lines record jars or vessels of some kind, and the final legible entry notes one large unit of jars being disbursed from — or to — the institution of the 'mother-house.' The middle portion of the tablet is too broken to reconstruct fully.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 [units] of |NINDA2×HI| (bread/food ration) — SANGA (temple administrator) 2 [units] of GISZ3 (timber/wooden goods) — SANGA (temple administrator) 2 [units] of EN [official] [...] [2 units] of [...] ME DUG (vessel/jar) [...] 1 [large unit] of DUG (vessel/jar) — disbursed — |AMA×E2| (institution of the 'mother'-house)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(N01) , |NINDA2xHI| SANGA~a 2(N01) , GISZ3~b# SANGA~a# 2(N01) , EN~a [...] [2(N01)] , [...] ME~a DUG~a [...] 1(N14) , DUG~a# BA |AMA~axE2~a|
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 160. 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 (P325158) — 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.