Position in chronology
CUSAS 01, 115
About this tablet
This is one of the oldest written documents on earth — a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE, when writing in southern Mesopotamia was still a pictographic bookkeeping tool rather than a way to record language. It lists measured amounts of barley issued as rations to a series of institutions, offices and personnel — one entry names Uruk itself, another a temple administrator, another fish or fishermen — and closes with a grand total of grain 'consumed'. There is no grammar here, no sentences: just numbers, commodities and recipients, the raw arithmetic of a large redistributive economy. The tablet's findspot is unknown; it is now in the Cornell cuneiform collection.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Barley disbursement account. Ten-measures each of barley rations to the GIŠ×ŠU₂ office, to IM, to NAGA, and to one further recipient whose name is broken away; twenty measures to Uruk. A damaged entry involves the temple administrator, and another line is unreadable. Smaller amounts follow: a small quantity of barley marked 'new', one measure for fish (or for fishermen), and a further measure under a heading that includes the signs PA and KÙ. After a break, the account resumes with more small barley quantities and a container entry, then closes with the summed total of barley consumed. Several figures and labels are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (left column) 1. 1(N14) — barley, ration(s) for |GIŠ×ŠU₂~a| (an office/institution) 2. 1(N14) — barley, ration(s) for IM~a 3. 1(N14) — barley, ration(s) for NAGA~a 4. 1(N14) — barley, ration(s) for [...] 5. 2(N14) — barley, ration(s) for UNUG~b (Uruk) 6. [...] — [...] the temple administrator (SANGA~a) 7. [...] — (one illegible sign) 8. 1(N39~a) 1(N24) — barley, UB, new (GIBIL) 9. 1(N01) — barley, fish / fishermen (KU₆~a) 10. 1(N04) — GIŠ₃~b PA~a KÙ~a 11. 1(N19) 12. [...] — [...] (Further section / totals) 13. 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) — LAGAB~b (container/aggregate), barley 14. 1(N19) 1(N04) — [...] 15. 1(N19) 1(N04) 1(N14) 3(N01) 3(N39~a) 1(N24) — barley, consumed (GU₇)
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
1(N14) , SZE~a# GAR# |GISZxSZU2~a| 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR IM~a 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR NAGA~a 1(N14) , SZE~a GAR [...] 2(N14) , SZE~a# GAR# UNUG~b [...] , [...] SANGA~a [...] , X 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a UB GIBIL 1(N01) , SZE~a# KU6~a 1(N04) , GISZ3~b PA~a KU3~a 1(N19) [...] , [...] 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , LAGAB~b SZE~a 1(N19)# 1(N04)# , [...] 1(N19) 1(N04) 1(N14)# 3(N01)# 3(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a# GU7
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 115. 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 (P325070) — 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.