Position in chronology
CUSAS 31, 168
About this tablet
A small, heavily fragmented proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), likely from the Umma region of southern Iraq. The surviving signs record quantities — probably of fish (SUHUR, likely carp) measured in the large unit N14 plus smaller N01 units — alongside signs that may denote personnel categories including a female worker (SAL) and a supervisor or elder (PAP~a). This is the kind of everyday institutional record-keeping that represents the very earliest use of writing in human history, invented precisely to track commodities and labor at large Mesopotamian temple-households.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records at least one measurable quantity — 1 large unit plus 5 smaller units — of what appears to be carp or processed fish. Other entries mention capacity measures (probably for grain or liquid), and what may be titles or categories of personnel, including a 'great lord/master,' a smaller subdivision, a female worker, and a supervisor. Several lines are too broken or worn to read with confidence, and the reverse of the main fragment appears uninscribed or eroded. This is a fragmentary receipt or allocation record: commodities counted and people noted, the rest lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] SILA3 (capacity measure)? [...] SILA3+MUD3 (combined/modified capacity sign) 1(N14) 5(N01) — SUHUR (carp/fish) [...] UMUN2 GAL~a TUR PA~a (lord/master, large, small, branch/wing?) [...] MUD IB~a — SAL PAP~a [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] SILA3~a#? [...] |SILA3~a+MUD3~b| 1(N14) 5(N01) , SUHUR [...] UMUN2 GAL~a TUR PA~a [...] MUD IB~a , SAL PAP~a [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 31, 168. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: anonymous, unlocated (P270811) — 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.