Position in chronology
UET 2, 0215
About this tablet
A small, badly damaged administrative tablet from the ancient city of Ur, written around 2700–2500 BCE in the Early Dynastic period. What survives is a fragment of an economic account: a few numbered entries recording goods or personnel under the label KAL, with quality terms ('ration', 'first grade', 'fine') attached. Even in this battered state it testifies to the meticulous bookkeeping of one of the world's earliest urban bureaucracies, centuries before connected literature was written down.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from an accountant's ledger, most of it now crumbled away. Two entries are still legible: one unit of something in the KAL category, marked as a ration or food portion, and further down, two units of the same KAL category. In between, the clerk noted quality descriptions — 'top grade' and something 'fine' involving a wood item — and there is a mention of what may be a tablet or record. Everything before, between, and after these entries is lost to breakage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] , [...] [...] , [...] tablet(?) (DUB), PA₃, DA(?) 1 (unit) , KAL-category, ration (GAR) , first quality(?), SUG₅ , fine(?) ... wood(-product) [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] large(?) (GAL), DA, ... (illegible sign) 2 (units) , KAL-category [...] [...] , [...] (remainder broken; reverse and edges uninscribed or effaced)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] [...] , [...] DUB~a#? PA3 DA~a#? 1(N01@f) , KAL~b2 GAR , SAG SUG5 , SAL GISZ [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] GAL~a#? DA~a X 2(N01@f) , KAL~b2# [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — UET 2, 0215. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005810) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.
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.