Position in chronology
CUSAS 35, 413
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P252824.
Translation · AI engine
read from photo20 ewes; 4 fattened ewes, 1 ram — (animals) chosen as first-quality (sag-eš₃-tuku); 15 lambs; [x?] ... lambs; [...] ...; 2 male lambs, 3 milk-ewes (kir₁₁), clipped (bar-li) — collected (de₅-de₅); 7 milk-ewes (kir₁₁) shorn, 3 fattened sheep — chosen as first-quality (sag-eš₃-tuku); 10 ewes, 15 male lambs, shorn, gazelles (maš-da₃) — collected (de₅-de₅), fattened (kuruszda), delivered (šum₂-ma); [...] great storehouse (ganun-maḫ) [...] shorn, 30 minus 3 (= 27?), year 7, month [x].
8 uncertain terms ↓
- sag-eš₃-tuku — Literally 'having/possessing the foremost quality'; an Early Dynastic administrative designation for prime-quality animals selected for institutional use or offerings. The exact institutional nuance (sacrificial selection vs. breeding stock vs. highest ration-grade) is debated.
- kir₁₁ — Usually interpreted as 'milk ewe' or a specific category of female sheep in Early Dynastic livestock rosters; the precise zoological or productive distinction from u₈ (ordinary ewe) is not fully established.
- bar-li — Literally 'stripped/clipped outside'; understood in this context as 'shorn' (wool removed), but the exact technical term and its relation to the wool-accounting system is uncertain. Some read it as a coat-quality descriptor rather than a processing action.
- de₅-de₅ — Reduplicated form of de₅, 'to collect/gather'; here functions as an administrative summary verb meaning animals have been received/collected into the account. The precise institutional transaction (from herder to temple? from temple to storehouse?) is not specified.
- kuruszda — Standard Early Dynastic term for fattened/stall-fed animals (lit. 'provided with fodder'); well-attested, but whether it marks an ongoing status or a completed fattening process in this entry is ambiguous.
- maš-da₃ — Normally translated 'gazelle'; its presence alongside sheep and lambs in an institutional livestock list is notable — gazelles were kept and fattened in some Early Dynastic temple herds, but the reading here is dependent on a partially damaged sign (ur₄ masz-da₃) and could alternatively refer to a category of young goat.
- ganun-maḫ — 'Great storehouse/granary'; a well-known Early Dynastic institutional building designation, but the surrounding context in the final line is broken and the precise administrative relationship to the preceding livestock entries is unclear.
- la₂ 3(disz@t) mu 7(disz@t) iti — Read as 'minus 3, year 7, month [x]'; the subtraction formula with la₂ is standard in Sumerian accounting, but the total from which 3 is subtracted is lost in the lacuna, and 'year 7' of which ruler or institution is unspecified.
Reasoning ↓
The central (obverse) face is the clearest in the photograph: roughly 5–6 horizontal ruled lines are visible, each divided into a left and right column. Individual wedge clusters are discernible at the resolution provided. I can confirm the presence of multiple vertical and diagonal wedge groups consistent with numerical notations (the large curved signs for 10 and 20, and smaller diagonal wedges for units), and several complex logograms in the right-hand columns. The surface has a diagonal crack running upper-left to lower-right and some minor erosion, but most of the obverse is legible. The reverse (bottom image) shows sparser text — a few sign clusters in the upper-right area and what appear to be three vertical wedges (possibly '3') and a single diagonal below; these are consistent with the transliteration's final summary line. The edge views (left and right) show additional signs that I cannot resolve clearly enough to read independently. Overall the photo broadly supports the transliteration: the numerical patterns, the columnar layout, and the logogram clusters are where expected. However, several entries in the transliteration's damaged or uncertain lines (marked with # and [...]) cannot be verified from the photo alone. The reading 'la₂ 3(disz@t)' as '30 minus 3' (= 27) in the final line is a restoration dependent on the curved numeral form and a subtraction sign — plausible but not confirmable at this resolution. The transliteration is from CUSAS 35 (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology), which provides the scholarly baseline used here.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 2536 in / 1490 out tokens
Why it matters
Transliteration
2(u@c) u8 4(disz@t) u8 kuruszda 1(disz@t) udu-nita sag-esz3-tuku 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) sila4 [x?] x x sila4 [...] x 2(asz@c) sila4 nita 3(asz@c@90) kir11 bar-li de5-de5 7(asz@c) kir11 ur4 3(disz@t)# udu# kuruszda# sag-esz3-tuku 1(u@c)# u8 1(u@c) 5(asz@c) sila4 nita ur4 masz-da3 de5-de5 kuruszda szum2-ma# [...] ganun#-mah [...] ur4#-ra 3(u)? la2 3(disz@t) mu 7(disz@t) iti
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED IIIb (ca. 2500-2340 BC) ?) — CUSAS 35, 413. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P252824) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P252824..
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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.