Position in chronology
MS 2686
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), likely produced at or near Umma in southern Iraq. It records quantities of animals and possibly birds under various commodity categories, the kind of tally kept by temple or palace officials tracking incoming or outgoing livestock and foodstuffs. The signs are among the most archaic known, barely distinguishable from pictographs, and several remain undeciphered. Its interest lies precisely in its age: bureaucracy and writing were invented together, and tablets like this are the birth certificate of both.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records a series of commodity entries, most paired with a quantity on the left and a goods-category on the right. We can read: 9 units of something associated with a mouth/opening sign and a related category; 7 of another type; 1 large unit of a similar grouping (the rest of that line is broken); then a group of 26 of what may be young birds of a specific breed; 5 of an unclear item; 6 of a category written NUN; 1 of a cut of meat or animal product (UDUNITA); and 1 goat. Several lines at the top, middle, and bottom are too damaged or broken to read. Taken together, the surviving entries look like a single day's tally of animals or animal products passing through an institutional storehouse.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] 9 , KA~a RAD~a DI 7 , BU3 NA~a 1 [large unit] [...] , RAD~a DI [...] [...] , X [...] — , [LAGAB~b?] [...] 26 [large unit + 6] , young [bird of type MUSZENxPAP?] TI 5 , X [...] [...] , [...] 6 , NUN~b 1 , UDUNITA~a 1 , goat [...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] 9(N01)# , KA~a RAD~a DI 7(N01) , BU3 NA~a 1(N14) [...] , RAD~a DI# [...] [...] , X [...] , LAGAB~b? [...] 2(N14) 6(N01) , TUR |MUSZENxPAP~a|? TI 5(N01) , X [...] [...] , [...] 6(N01) , NUN~b 1(N01) , UDUNITA~a 1(N01) , MASZ2 [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2686. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006107) — 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.