Position in chronology
MS 2863/07
About this tablet
One of the oldest types of written document in human history: a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), likely from Umma in southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities — probably barley or a related grain — distributed to or stored in named institutional buildings or locations. The tablet is divided into cases (boxes ruled on the clay), each holding a number followed by a commodity or place sign, the standard format of the very earliest Mesopotamian bookkeeping. Such tablets are the direct forerunners of all later writing; they were administrative tools, not literature, yet they represent the moment when human beings first used inscribed symbols systematically to track economic activity.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several batches of goods — most likely barley — assigned to specific storehouses or institutional locations. One entry counts roughly 41 units associated with a person or overseer and a sign we cannot yet read confidently. Another records approximately 90 units linked to a building complex called KITI, and a third gives 62 units for a different storehouse category alongside an unidentified quality or condition marker. The final two lines are too damaged to read fully. In essence, this is a snapshot of a Mesopotamian administrator tallying up supplies across several storage facilities on a single day.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine41 [units of] barley (?) — head/person — RAD~a [...] — [...] ~90 [units] — |3(N57).E2~b| KITI 62 [units] — |E2~a×3(N58)| ZATU795 LAM~b [...] ~11 [units + mixed signs] — [...] 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
4(N14)# 1(N01) , SZE~a SAG RAD~a [...] , [...] 9(N14)# , |3(N57).E2~b| KITI 6(N14) 2(N01) , |E2~ax3(N58)| ZATU795 LAM~b [...] 1(N14)# 1(N01)# 1(N39~a)# 1(N24)# , [...] X [...] , [...] X
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2863/07. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006173) — 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.