CUSAS 01, 187

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P325741

About this tablet

This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), one of the very earliest types of writing known to humanity. It records livestock — primarily lambs or young sheep — alongside milk, fish, and timber, likely as part of an institutional account managed by a high-status official (EN) and a temple administrator (sanga). The reverse is uninscribed or too damaged to read. Tablets like this are the bureaucratic backbone of the world's first cities: not literature, but the ledger-keeping that made complex urban organization possible.

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

Written in modern English

The tablet tracks sheep (probably lambs), milk products, fish, and timber under the supervision of a lord or high priest and a temple administrator. One entry records five pen-units of sheep attributed to the EN official. A junior official or small-hand entry closes the text. Several lines are too broken to read, and the reverse is blank or effaced.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

SILA4 (lamb/sheep), GA (milk) X [...] [SILA4] (lamb/sheep), GA (milk) [...] SILA4 (lamb/sheep), LAGAB, UMUN2, DU SILA4 (lamb/sheep), temple-administrator, tablet/record EN (lord/high-priest): LAGAB LAGAB LAGAB LAGAB LAGAB, SILA4 (lamb/sheep) [...], [...] [...], [...] LAGAB, [...] SILA4 (lamb/sheep), [...] LAGAB, GA2 KU6 (fish) LAGAB, [wood/timber] ŠU TUR (small hand / junior official?)

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

SILA4~c , GA~a# X [...]
[SILA4~c] , GA~a [...]
SILA4~c# LAGAB~b , UMUN2 DU
SILA4~c , SANGA~a DUB~a#
EN~a , LAGAB~b LAGAB~b LAGAB~b LAGAB~b LAGAB~b SILA4~c
[...] , [...]
[...] , [...]
LAGAB~b , [...]
SILA4~c , [...]
LAGAB~b , GA2~a2 KU6~a
LAGAB~b , GISZ3~b
SZU TUR

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CUSAS 01, 187. 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 (P325741) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).

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Related sources

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