Position in chronology
CDLI Lexical 000003, ex. 034
About this tablet
This is a small, badly broken clay fragment from an Early Dynastic scribal word list found at Ur — one of the standardized sign-lists that apprentice scribes copied over and over to learn the cuneiform writing system. Each line is a short entry made of two or three signs (a size qualifier like 'great/large' paired with terms for pig, plow, or other categories), not a sentence or a transaction. Tablets like this are the raw vocabulary drills behind the earliest literate bureaucracy in Mesopotamia, and their fragmentary state is typical — most survive only as broken pieces recovered from ancient rubbish or fill.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a list of short vocabulary entries, each marked off by a numeral placeholder rather than an actual count. The readable entries pair the sign for 'great/large' with words for 'pig,' an uncertain sign (SZAB), and other terms, while other lines combine an obscure sign (NAM2) with 'plow' or trail off into breaks. It reads like a training list of standard word-combinations rather than a record of real goods or people — the kind of memorized sign-pairs a young scribe in Ur would have copied out to learn his craft. Several lines are too damaged to read past the first sign or two.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N01), NAM2 [...] 1(N01), GAL~a ("great/large") SZAH2~a ("pig") 1(N01), NAM2 APIN~a ("plow") 1(N01), GAL~a [...] 1(N01), GAL~a ("great/large") SZAB~a 1(N01), PA~a NAM2 [...] 1(N01), AB~a [...] 1(N01), GAL~a [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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.
Engine notes
read from photo7 uncertain terms ↓
- NAM2 — Can denote 'fate/destiny' as a noun, but in these early lexical lists it more likely functions as a determinative or title element; exact meaning in context is uncertain.
- SZAH2~a (ŠAḪ) — Usually 'pig'; in combination with GAL may indicate a category of pig, a ration class, or a title element — context ambiguous in this fragment.
- APIN~a — Standard reading 'plow'; here may designate a plow-related profession or land-use category rather than the implement itself.
- SZAB~a (ŠABA) — Sign reading debated; may relate to a type of official, ration recipient, or commodity class.
- PA~a — Can mean 'branch/frond' or function as a determinative for certain titles; exact function in this compound entry unclear.
- AB~a — Polyphonous sign; possible readings include 'sea/ocean', 'father', or a professional title marker in Early Dynastic context.
- 1(N01) — The N01 is the basic round-impression numeral '1' in the proto-cuneiform/Early Dynastic counting system; the commodity or measure it counts is not specified in the surviving text.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows six clay fragments (multiple views or joins of the same object, accession label '014900 / 37-7-80' visible on the reverse of one piece). The surfaces are heavily eroded with significant orange-tan surface degradation; the wedge impressions are shallow and in several places nearly effaced. On the best-preserved face (middle-left and lower fragments) I can make out repeated horizontal ruling lines separating entries, and within each line a small round impression (consistent with the N01 number sign) followed by clusters of wedges. The sign groups are consistent with the GAL~a, NAM2, SZAH2~a, and APIN~a readings in the transliteration, though the resolution and damage make independent sign-by-sign verification impossible for most entries. The broken entries at lines 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 correspond to visible lacunae and surface loss in the photograph. The transliteration is drawn from the CDLI Lexical 000003 corpus (an Early Dynastic lexical/administrative list from Ur); the sign forms are consistent with ED IIIa–b Ur material. Photo and transliteration are broadly consistent; no clear discrepancies detected, though many signs cannot be confirmed from the photo alone.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 12, 2026 · 3496 in / 942 out tokens
Transliteration
1(N01) , NAM2# [...] 1(N01) , GAL~a SZAH2~a 1(N01) , NAM2 APIN~a# 1(N01) , GAL~a# [...] 1(N01) , GAL~a SZAB~a# 1(N01) , PA~a NAM2# [...] 1(N01) , AB~a# [...] 1(N01) , GAL~a# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000003, ex. 034. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (P000728) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.
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.