Position in chronology
MS 2863/03
About this tablet
A very early administrative or accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), probably from Umma in southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities or allocations against a series of pictographic signs — a typical format for the earliest known writing system in the world, used not for literature but for bookkeeping. The signs along the right edge include references that may relate to agricultural tools (a plough sign, APIN), personnel categories (ŠUBUR, a term for a type of worker or slave), and possibly honey or syrup (LAL2). The tablet is highly fragmentary, with most entries incomplete, but it represents the very birth of written record-keeping — an ancient accountant tallying goods, rations, or labour assignments.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a badly damaged accounting record. What survives shows: 2 units of something — possibly honey or syrup — alongside an uncertain commodity; 3 more units of something unreadable. A larger entry records a quantity apparently amounting to several dozen units associated with what may be a settlement, a plant product, and a branch or staff. Subsequent broken lines list further goods or persons connected with terms suggesting a plough, a type of labourer or dependent worker, daylight or a time unit, a woman or female category, a vessel or boat, and more worker designations. Most of the entries are too broken to read fully.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] 2 (units) , LAL2~a NE~a 3 (units) , X [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] 1(N34) 2(N14) 3(N01) [?], [...] URU~a1 BU~a PA~a [...] , [...] A [...] , [...] AN X ŠUBUR [...] , [...] APIN~b [...] , [...] X NI~a U4 [...] , [...] X PAP~a SAL [...] , [...] X NI~a MA [...] , [...] X ŠUBUR [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] X
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) , LAL2~a NE~a 3(N01) , X [...] [...] , [...] , [...] [...] 1(N34)# 2(N14)# 3(N01)# , [...] URU~a1 BU~a PA~a [...] , [...] A [...] , [...] AN X SZUBUR# [...] , [...] APIN~b [...] , [...] X NI~a# U4 [...] , [...] X PAP~a# SAL# [...] , [...] X NI~a# MA# [...] , [...] X SZUBUR# [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] X
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2863/03. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006169) — 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.