CUSAS 01, 100

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325238

About this tablet

A proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), the era of the world's first writing, now in the Cornell collection. It records measured amounts of barley — the round and D-shaped impressions are the number signs, pressed into the clay with the blunt end of a stylus — attached to a short list of officials or categories that ends with SANGA~a, the temple administrator. The obverse lists an entry; the reverse gives a larger, totalled amount followed by the same sequence of names, exactly as a modern ledger repeats an account heading beside its sum. The individual words are still only partly understood, but the arithmetic and the structure are unmistakable.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Front: five large measures of barley, charged to the account of BU~a, PAP~a and NAM2. Delivered — grain, oil(?), BU~a — for NAGAR~a, ZI~a, and the temple administrator. Back, the total: one very large measure, one large measure, five standard measures and four small units of barley, plus six further units. Delivered — grain, oil(?), BU~a — for NAGAR~a, the temple administrator, and ZI~a. The names and titles are written in the earliest script known, and several of the words cannot yet be read with certainty; the numbers, however, are perfectly legible.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

Obverse 1. 5(N14) — barley: BU~a, PAP~a, NAM2 2. DU (delivered), ŠE3, NI~a, BU~a 3. NAGAR~a, ZI~a, SANGA~a (the temple administrator) Reverse 1. 1(N34) 1(N45) 5(N14) 4(N1) — barley 2. 6(N19) 3. DU (delivered), ŠE3, NI~a, BU~a 4. NAGAR~a, SANGA~a (the temple administrator), ZI~a (The numerals are given in the archaic ŠE capacity system and are left in their sign values rather than converted; the small circular and D-shaped impressions on both faces are the counters themselves.)

Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

5(N14)# , SZE~a BU~a PAP~a NAM2
DU SZE3 NI~a BU~a
NAGAR~a ZI~a# SANGA~a#
1(N34) 1(N45) 5(N14) 4(N01) , SZE~a
6(N19) ,
DU SZE3 NI~a BU~a
NAGAR~a SANGA~a# ZI~a

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 100. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA (P325238) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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