Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 172
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), a time when writing was brand new and used almost exclusively for record-keeping. It tallies quantities of some commodity or allocation — possibly rations, labor, or goods — apparently associated with workers or a storehouse institution, and mentions the city of Uruk by name. The tablet is divided into ruled boxes, each pairing numerical notations with logograms, exactly as one expects from the very first generation of accountants who invented writing not for literature but for ledgers. Its fragmentary state and the archaic sign repertoire mean that many details remain genuinely uncertain even to specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Five (plus a fraction) units of something are assigned to the Uruk account. One further allotment, slightly larger, goes to the workers' storehouse. Another entry — its details now lost — records a similar allocation. Four units and some additional measure are received by hand for the UR5 account. A final summary line notes: one larger unit (of ten or six smaller ones), recorded as 'new' or 'fresh.' The rest of the tablet's reverse is blank or too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 + 1(N24): HI@g — Uruk 1 + 1(N24) + 1(N16): HI@g — labor-force / workers, storehouse (base) 1 + 1(N24) + 1(N28) + 1(N30c): HI@g — [...] 4 + 3(N39a) + 1(N24): HI@g — receipt (into the hand of) UR5 ; GIBIL — 1(N04) heads/persons
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
5(N01)# 1(N24) , HI@g~a UNUG~a 1(N01) 1(N24) 1(N16) , HI@g~a ERIN E2~a UR2 1(N01) 1(N24) 1(N28) 1(N30~c)# , HI@g~a# [...] 4(N01) 3(N39~a) 1(N24) , HI@g~a# SZU# UR5~a , GIBIL 1(N04) SAG#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 172. 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 (P283917) — 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.