Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 181
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P252760.
Translation · AI engine
read from photo[n] male sheep — Nani was given (them). 3 male sheep — Nani was given (them). (Via) the regular road/established route, Utu-tešmu, (of the) house of the son (e₂-dumu), Di-Utu, the overseer (nu-banda₃). Month of the barley harvest[, (that) month].
6 uncertain terms ↓
- an-na-šum₂ — Literally 'was given to him/her from above' or simply 'was given'; the passive/allocative construction is standard in ED administrative texts but the exact syntactic force (gift, ration, disbursement) is context-dependent.
- giri₃-gen-na — Literally 'established/regular foot/road'; interpreted as 'via the regular/authorized route,' referring to the standard delivery pathway. Could alternatively denote a personal name element or a formulaic term of authorization.
- e₂-dumu — 'House of the son'; this could refer to a specific institutional household (e.g., the heir's household of a temple or palace), or possibly a personal name component. The exact institutional referent at Adab is uncertain.
- utu-tešmu — Personal name, literally 'Utu is (my/our) pride/equal'; tešmu (or tèš-mu) may mean 'pride,' 'dignity,' or 'equal.' The precise reading and etymology are debated.
- iti še-saĝ-ku₅ — Month name meaning approximately 'month of the prime barley cutting (harvest)'; attestation varies slightly across Early Dynastic calendars and the exact month number within the Adab calendar is not firmly established.
- [n] udu-nita — The number of male sheep in the first entry is broken/missing in the transliteration. The parallel second entry records 3, so the first may also be a small number, but this is speculative.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a small lenticular (lens-shaped) clay tablet, typical of Early Dynastic administrative documents from Adab. The obverse (main face) carries clearly incised cuneiform wedges arranged in horizontal registers separated by ruled lines; the signs are reasonably crisp despite some surface cracking visible across the center of the tablet. The reverse (bottom image) is largely uninscribed, consistent with short administrative texts of this period, and carries the modern museum ink notation 'MS 3790/37'. The edge views show additional signs on the left and right edges, which align with the transliteration's continuation of text around the tablet's rim — consistent with the iti (month) formula visible on the edge. Visual reading confirms the general structure: repeated entries with numeric notation (the 3-fold aš sign for '3' is visible), followed by sign clusters consistent with udu-nita (male sheep), personal name signs, and the an-na-šum₂ (was given) formula. The giri₃-gen-na (via the established/regular road) phrase on the lower obverse is partially legible. Nu-banda₃ (overseer) on the lower portion aligns with visible sign groupings. The month name iti še-saĝ-ku₅ (month of cutting the prime barley) is partially broken at the tablet's edge, consistent with the transliteration's bracket. Photo resolution is sufficient to confirm the general sign layout but not every individual sign — particularly the damaged upper-left and the edge text. The transliteration and photo are broadly in agreement; no significant discrepancies detected.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 2229 in / 1113 out tokens
Why it matters
Transliteration
[n] udu#-nita# na-ni an-na-szum2 3(asz@c) udu-nita na-ni an-na-szum2 giri3-gen-na utu-tesz2-mu e2-dumu di-utu nu-banda3 iti sze-sag11#-ku5-[kam]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC)) — CUSAS 35, 181. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252760) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P252760..
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.