CUSAS 01, 175

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325453

About this tablet

This is an administrative accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), one of the earliest types of written records in human history. It lists quantities of various commodities — likely wood or timber, some kind of vessel or container, reed mats, and other goods — associated with an institutional storehouse. The final line uses terms suggesting a distribution or disbursement record connected to a central institution (perhaps a temple or granary) in a Mesopotamian city. Tablets like this represent the very origins of writing: not literature or religion, but the bureaucratic need to track goods moving in and out of large urban storehouses.

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

Written in modern English

An ancient accountant records: 2 units of timber for the storehouse; 6 units of some kind of jar or vessel (possibly connected to animal products); 6 reed mats; 17 units of a commodity called MA (perhaps boats or large containers); and 10-plus units of another item whose quantity is now lost. The closing lines link this disbursement record to a tablet, a storehouse, the land of Kalam, a city, barley, and some quantity of oil — all apparently issued or distributed. The middle portion of the tablet is damaged and cannot be fully read.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

2 [units], timber/wood storehouse (E2~a) 6 [units], [vessel/container with animal/butchery determinative] (|DUG~bx(UDU~axTAR)|) 6 [units], reed mat (KID~b) 1(N14) 7 [units], MA [commodity — possibly boats or containers] 1(N14) [...] [units], SZEN~b [commodity uncertain] BA DUB~a E2~a KALAM~g URU~a1 SZE~a SAR~a [Disbursement/allotment] — tablet — storehouse — the land (Kalam) — city — barley — SAR~a [...] NI~a BA [...] oil/fat — disbursement

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

2(N01) , GISZ@t# E2~a
6(N01) , |DUG~bx(UDU~axTAR)|
6(N01) , KID~b
1(N14) 7(N01) , MA
1(N14) [...] , SZEN~b
BA DUB~a E2~a KALAM~g URU~a1 SZE~a SAR~a
, NI~a BA

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 175. 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 (P325453) — 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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