Position in chronology
UET 2, 0136bis
About this tablet
A small, badly damaged accounting tablet from the city of Ur, written in the Early Dynastic period (early third millennium BCE) — among the oldest written records from that site. It lists quantities in an archaic numerical system, with several entries qualified as 'first quality,' though the commodity being counted is lost in the breaks. Fragments like this show the city's administration measuring and grading goods centuries before connected literature was written.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a ledger fragment: an entry of 5 large units and 5 small units of something whose name is broken away; then 3 large units and 2 small units marked 'first quality'; another 'first quality' entry whose amount is lost; then roughly 2 units — the number is doubtful — again 'first quality'; and a final line too broken to read. The back of the tablet carries no readable text. In short, someone at Ur was tallying graded quantities of a commodity, but the breaks have taken the commodity's name with them.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 5(N19) 5(N04) — ... [...] [...] 3(N19) 2(N04) — first-quality [...] [...] — first-quality [...] [...] 2(N14)(?) — first-quality [...] [...] — [...] (remainder broken; reverse uninscribed/eroded)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
5(N19@f) 5(N04@f) , X [...] [...] 3(N19@f) 2(N04@f) , SAG# [...] [...] , SAG# [...] [...] 2(N14@f)#? , SAG# [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0136bis. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005718) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.