Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 111
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), one of the earliest generations of writing anywhere. Its scribe recorded quantities using proto-cuneiform number signs from several different counting systems — one for grain capacity, another for discrete or area units — attached to two commodity entries: barley and a fibre-commodity (GU). No personal names or verbs are written; at this stage of writing, the script recorded amounts and goods, not sentences. The piece is broken at the left and bottom, so at least two entries are lost, and the reverse was left blank, which is normal for a short single-transaction record.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short bookkeeping note. The first entry tallies a quantity of barley — written with a string of capacity signs (four large units, two small, plus three more of another grain measure and two further marks). A second line adds another set of figures, but the start of it is broken away. Lower down comes a second commodity entry: a further count of measures, then a figure attached to GU, a fibre or thread commodity, qualified by a sign group read ḪI×N57. The final line is lost in the break, and the back of the tablet was never written on.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (col. i) 4(N14) 2(N01) 3(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N30~c) — barley (ŠE) [...] 1(N04) 1(N41) [...] — [...] (col. ii / lower register) 2(N18) 4(N03) 1(N30~c) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N28) — |ḪI×1(N57)| GU [...] — [...] (Reverse: uninscribed / blank)
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
4(N14)# 2(N01) 3(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N30~c) , SZE~a [...] 1(N04) 1(N41) [...] , [...] 2(N18) 4(N03) 1(N30~c) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) 1(N28) , |HIx1(N57)| GU~a [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 111. 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 (P325485) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.