Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 072
About this tablet
One of humanity's earliest written documents: a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period, around 3300–3000 BCE, before writing could yet record full sentences. An administrator tallied deliveries or allocations of barley in the archaic grain-measure system — one entry apparently connected with a musician or singer, and a final large entry marked as 'new' barley, likely fresh from the harvest. Now held at Cornell University, it shows bookkeeping, not literature, driving the invention of writing.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a grain ledger. The first two entries are broken away, though the second still shows an amount of barley marked as deposited. Then the readable lines: one large measure of barley under the sign GIR3 with a category marker whose meaning is now lost; three large measures of barley for the musician (or the office so designated); and finally a big closing entry — six large measures plus four smaller units and two fractional units of barley — labeled 'new,' probably fresh grain from the latest harvest. The top of the tablet, with whatever opening entries it carried, is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] , [...] [...] , barley — deposited (RU) 1(N14) , GIR3(?) — barley, ZATU773 3(N14) , barley — for the musician(?) (NAR), A (reverse) 6(N14) 4(N01) 1(N39a) 1(N24) , barley — new (fresh)
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
[...] , [...] [...] , SZE~a RU 1(N14) , GIR3~c# SZE~a ZATU773~a 3(N14)# , SZE~a NAR A 6(N14) 4(N01)# 1(N39~a)# 1(N24)# , SZE~a GIBIL
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 072. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P325243) — 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.