Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 079
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform clay tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), the very first centuries of writing, now at Cornell University. It is a grain account: rows of impressed number-signs from the bisexagesimal/grain-capacity systems tally quantities of barley, one lot marked as 'new' (fresh-harvest) grain and linked to an exchange or purchase value. Names and verbs are essentially absent — at this stage writing was still an accountant's tool, recording quantities, commodities and institutional categories rather than sentences.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The first line records a large measured amount of grain — 2 of one large unit, 2 of another, 6 of the next, plus smaller fractions — described as new barley and entered against a purchase or exchange value, with a date or category notation and the designation NAM2. The second line lists a further quantity of barley. Three more lines give smaller amounts, but their commodity labels are lost in the breaks. The reverse carries additional number impressions, too damaged to read as a continuous account.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 2(N34) 2(N36) 6(N14) 3(N19) 2(N01) — new (grain), barley; purchase-price; |U4×2(N57)|; NAM2 3(N34) 1(N14) 5(N01)# — barley 2(N46) 2(N19) — 3(N14)# [...] — 3(N19) [...] 3(N04)# — (Reverse: surface largely broken; further numerical entries and impressed round/oblique number-signs are visible but not covered by the transliteration.)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
2(N34) 2(N36) 6(N14) 3(N19) 2(N01) , GIBIL SZE~a SZAM2 |U4x2(N57)| NAM2 3(N34) 1(N14) 5(N01)# , SZE~a 2(N46) 2(N19) , 3(N14)# [...] , 3(N19) [...] 3(N04)# ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 079. 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 (P325738) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.