Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 075
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — the era of the world's very first writing. An anonymous accountant recorded a handful of individual entries (possibly female workers, a livestock pen, and various goods whose sign-meanings are still not fully deciphered) and closed with a summary line of barley marked as disbursed. Documents like this were not literature but bookkeeping: writing was invented precisely to track quantities of grain, animals, and labor in the great institutional households of early Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an account sheet, five entries and a total. One unit is booked against a woman (or a fine-quality item) with two qualifiers we can no longer read; a half-measure against a commodity called MUD; three-quarters against another item; a third-measure against something labeled DI; and ten units against a woman connected with the cattle pen. The bottom line: a little over seven full measures of barley — written 7 large units, 2 small units, a third and a half — recorded as paid out. Who received it and why is not stated; the tablet is the receipt, not the story.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 (N01) — female (worker?), UB, ZI (entry of uncertain meaning) 1 (N24) — NA, MUD (a commodity of unknown identity), BU 1 (N24) 1 (N28) — ZATU714, MU, HI 1 (N26) — DI 1 (N14) — female (worker?), ME, of the cattle pen 7 (N14) 2 (N39a) 1 (N26) 1 (N24) — barley, DA, disbursed (BA), IM
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
1(N01)# , SAL UB ZI~a 1(N24) , NA~a MUD BU~a 1(N24) 1(N28) , ZATU714 MU HI@g~a 1(N26) , DI@t 1(N14) , SAL ME~a# TUR3~a 7(N14) 2(N39~a) 1(N26) 1(N24) , SZE~a DA~a BA IM~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 075. 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 (P325449) — 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.