Position in chronology
Clay tablet, record of barley and emmer. Late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Purchased via Christie's, no provenance
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet, record of barley and emmer. Late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Purchased via Christie's, no provenance.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet%2C_record_of_barley_and_emmer._Late_Uruk_period%2C_3300-3100_BCE._Purchased_via_Christie's%2C_no_provenance.jpg. Description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Emmer wheat is differentiated from barley by writing numbers with extra strokes. The proto-cuneiform signs document barley. Barley appears 4 times here and is represented by a single stalk with
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Emmer wheat is differentiated from barley by writing numbers with extra strokes. The proto-cuneiform signs document barley. Barley appears 4 times here an
Attribution
Image: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet, record of barley and emmer. Late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Purchased via Christie's, no provenance.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet%2C_record_of_barley_and_emmer._Late_Uruk_period%2C_3300-3100_BCE._Purchased_via_Christie's%2C_no_provenance.jpg. Description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Emmer wheat is differentiated from barley by writing numbers with extra strokes. The proto-cuneiform signs document barley. Barley appears 4 times here and is represented by a single stalk with.
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The earliest historical document in human history.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.