Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 178
About this tablet
One of the oldest administrative records in human history, this small clay tablet dates to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE) — the very dawn of writing in ancient Iraq. It records quantities of commodities — fish, birds, and other goods — apparently associated with a storehouse or institutional courtyard, and tied to an authority figure (EN) who is distributing or receiving them. The tablet uses proto-cuneiform signs, the precursor to the full Sumerian writing system, and numbers in a sexagesimal (base-60) counting system. It is a glimpse into the earliest known bureaucracy: temple administrators tracking flows of goods before writing had even fully developed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several small lots of commodities: 3 units of fish for the courtyard, 3 units of SI-ME, 3 units associated with a large number of birds going to a storehouse, 2 units of RU, 3 units of BU-DU, and 3 lots plus an additional count under PAP. Six units are assigned to Šuruppak. A heading or label — EN TE BA — recurs, and the final line gives a larger total of 23 units under the same EN TE BA rubric. The middle portion and several commodity labels remain too uncertain to render precisely.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 [units], fish — courtyard 3 [units], SI ME 3 [units], [1(N57)] bird — storehouse 2 [units], RU 3 [units], BU DU 3 [units] 3(N57), PAP 6 [units], Šuruppak EN — TE — BA 23 [units], EN — TE — BA
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(N01) , KU6~a KISAL~b1 3(N01) , SI ME~a 3(N01) , |1(N57).MUSZEN| E2~a 2(N01) , RU 3(N01) , BU~a DU 3(N01) 3(N57) , PAP~a 6(N01) , SZURUPPAK~b EN~a TE BA 2(N14) 3(N01) , EN~a TE BA
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 178. 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 (P325351) — 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.