Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 077
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — the era when writing itself was being invented in southern Mesopotamia. It records quantities of barley in the archaic grain-measure system, sorted into ruled cases: some entries tied to a purchase or exchange, some 'deposited', one linked to fish or fishermen, and one apparently involving a storehouse and a high official (the EN). The reverse carries summary totals. Tablets like this are among humanity's very first documents: bookkeeping, not literature, done with number punches and pictographic signs before grammar could yet be written.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a barley ledger with running totals. One batch of grain (10 units) is logged as a purchase or exchange tied to a particular place; another (12 units) goes to the storehouse under the lord's account, with a note about 'nunuz'; further batches — 13 units, then several measured in smaller grain measures — are marked as deposited or handed over. Forty units of barley are entered against the fishermen (or a fish account). The back of the tablet sums it all up: 75 units of barley, plus a string of smaller grain measures, plus a final large barley total that is now mostly broken away. One entry in the middle and the end of the totals are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 1(N14) — purchase/exchange of barley; KI (place/origin). 1(N14) 2(N01) — storehouse(?); barley; the EN (lord/priest-ruler); NUNUZ. 1(N14) 3(N01) — barley; given/deposited (RU). 2(N19) — given/deposited (RU). [3(N19)] — [...] (entry broken). 2(N19) 4(N04) 3(N41) — given/deposited (RU). 4(N14) — barley; fish/fishermen (KU6). (reverse — totals) 7(N14) 5(N01) — barley. 7(N19) 4(N04) 3(N41) — (grain measures, no commodity sign preserved). [1(N45)? 5(N14)? 3(N01)?] 3(N41) — barley [...] (remainder lost).
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(N14) , SZAM2 SZE~a KI 1(N14) 2(N01) , GA2~a1? SZE~a EN~a NUNUZ~a1 1(N14) 3(N01) , SZE~a RU 2(N19) , RU [3(N19)] , [...] 2(N19) 4(N04) 3(N41) , RU 4(N14) , SZE~a KU6~a 7(N14)# 5(N01)# , SZE~a 7(N19)# 4(N04)# 3(N41)# [1(N45)? 5(N14)? 3(N01)?] 3(N41)# , SZE~a [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 077. 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 (P325062) — 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.