Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 086
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from the very dawn of writing — the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — now in the Cornell collection. It is broken, but the surviving cells still show the basic machinery of the world's first bookkeeping: numerical signs from the standard proto-cuneiform counting systems paired with word-signs naming what was being counted and who was accountable. Nobody can read proto-cuneiform as language yet; the numbers and a few commodity signs are all that speak clearly. Even so, this is one of the earliest surviving pieces of administrative paperwork ever made by human beings.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The first entry records 3 units of one measure plus 2 of a smaller one, charged against something designated "great," with two further signs beside it. The second entry lists 4 and 3 of the same measures against "fine" goods and flax or thread. A third entry gives roughly 2 large units, 2 units and 1 sub-unit, but the commodity name has flaked away. The remaining lines of the front are lost. On the back only a single fragmentary entry survives, marked "received — small." The rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse column i 1. 3 (N01) 2 (N59) — GAL~a ME~a SZESZ~a 2. 4 (N01) 3 (N59) — SAL SZA GU~a 3. 2 (N14)? 2 (N01) 1 (N59) — [...] 4. [...] — [...] 5. [...] — [...] 6. [...] — [...] (Break) Reverse [...] — SZU TUR ("in hand of / received — small")
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
3(N01) 2(N59) , GAL~a ME~a SZESZ~a 4(N01) 3(N59) , SAL SZA GU~a 2(N14)# 2(N01) 1(N59) , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , SZU TUR
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 086. 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 (P328738) — 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.