Position in chronology
MS 2684
About this tablet
A small, heavily damaged proto-cuneiform tablet from the Uruk period, probably originating from the city of Umma in southern Iraq, dating to roughly 3300–3000 BCE. It records a short administrative list: quantities of commodities, animals, or ration-recipients counted using the earliest known numeral system. The signs are among the oldest forms of writing ever produced, barely removed from purely pictographic notation. Despite its fragmentary state, the tablet preserves the essential form of Uruk-period accountancy — numbers paired with commodity signs in terse bureaucratic entries.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives of this tablet is a short tally: two units of something described as 'small' or 'junior' (possibly a junior worker or a smaller-grade commodity), two large bowls from a city or settlement, one item designated by a compound sign whose exact meaning is uncertain, one entry associated with Adab (possibly the city or an institutional label), and one further item recorded by a sign whose meaning has not yet been established. The beginning and end of the list are broken away and lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] [...] 2 , [commodity: NI~a?] small/junior 2 , large bowl (UTUL~a) [of/from] city/settlement 1 , [animal/commodity: DARA3~c × KAR2] 1 , [commodity/institution: ADAB] 1 , [commodity: ZATU799] [...] , [...] [damaged sign]
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)# , NI~a# TUR# 2(N01) , UTUL~a URU~a1@n 1(N01) , |DARA3~cxKAR2| 1(N01) , ADAB# 1(N01) , ZATU799 [...] , [...] X
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2684. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006105) — 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.