Position in chronology
CUSAS 31, 166
About this tablet
An administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), recording quantities of goods or rations distributed to or collected from named categories of persons — including at least one temple administrator (sanga). The signs are proto-cuneiform, among the earliest writing in human history, and the tablet uses the standard columned format with numeral impressions on the left and commodity/title signs on the right. Because many sign readings remain disputed or unclear for this early period, the exact commodities and transaction type cannot be fully recovered. It is a typical example of the bureaucratic record-keeping that drove the invention of writing in ancient southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A list of allocations or deliveries: 2 units of one commodity (possibly associated with a ration-bearer or overseer and a date-related sign), 2 units for a temple administrator, 3 units of another good (GA), then several partially broken entries. Further down: 5 units of DU-TE, 3 units of KAB, 3 and 2 units of a commodity designated ZATU659, 3 units of SUG5. The last legible lines record a larger total — perhaps 14 or more units — and 30 units of DUR, with a final entry for ZATU659. The middle and lower portions of the tablet are too damaged to read fully.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2, [commodity/ration?] SZUM PA U4(?) [sign] ZATU659 2, SANGA [temple administrator] |ZATU737xDI| 3, GA 1(?) [...], [...] [...], [...] 5, DU(?) TE 3, KAB(?) [...] 3, ZATU659 [+sign] 2, ZATU659 3, SUG5 [+sign] [...], [...] [...], [...] [1]4(?) [...] [+sign] [...] 30, DUR [...], ZATU659
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) , SZUM PA~a U4#? E~a ZATU659 2(N01) , SANGA~a |ZATU737xDI| 3(N01) , GA~a 1(N01)# [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 5(N01) , DU#? TE 3(N01) , KAB#? [...] 3(N01) , ZATU659 X 2(N01) , ZATU659 3(N01) , SUG5 X [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N14)# 4(N01)# [...] X [...] 2(N14) 10(N01) , DUR~b , ZATU659
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 31, 166. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P386388) — 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.