Position in chronology
MS 3158
About this tablet
This small lenticular clay tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE) is one of the earliest administrative records in human history — a proto-cuneiform accounting document listing quantities of various commodities under terse sign-labels. The numerals are pressed in round impressions, and each entry pairs a count with a pictographic sign identifying the item: livestock (calves), possibly craft goods or body-part categories, field measures, and what appears to be a final disbursement notation for fine or combed wool. No transliteration of proto-cuneiform can be called a 'reading' in the linguistic sense; these signs record quantities and categories, not yet sentences. Its interest lies precisely in that archaic quality — this is bookkeeping at the very dawn of writing, when signs had not yet fully detached from pictures.
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: 4 calves; 2 units of some item labeled by the 'ear' sign; 2 large items of another category; 1 of a sign associated with a high-status official or office; 2 implements (possibly hoes or shovels); 3 field units; 2 and 1 further items of uncertain category. The reverse or lower register records larger quantities — 11, 24, and 52 units respectively — with the final entry explicitly marked as a disbursement of fine or combed wool. The rest of the signs are too ambiguous to render confidently in modern terms.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 calves 2 [units of] GESZTU~b (ear? / craft item?) 2 GAL UR3~b1 (large ...?) 1 |EN~a×NUN~a| (lord/high official?) 2 MAR~a (implement / shovel?) 3 GAN2 (field units?) 2 |SZU2×EN~a| 1 TUKU [1 large unit +] 1, |GA2~b×X| [2 large units +] 4, BA? (disbursement?) [5 large units +] 2, KISZ SIG2~d2 BA (combed/fine wool — disbursed?)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
4(N01) , AMAR 2(N01) , GESZTU~b 2(N01) , GAL UR3~b1 1(N01) , |EN~axNUN~a| 2(N01) , MAR~a 3(N01) , GAN2 2(N01) , |SZU2xEN~a| 1(N01) , TUKU 1(N14) 1(N01) , |GA2~bxX| 2(N14) 4(N01) , BA? 5(N14) 2(N01) , KISZ SIG2~d2 BA
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC) ?) — MS 3158. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252169) — 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.