MS 2680

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006101

About this tablet

One of the world's earliest accounting documents: a small clay tablet from the Uruk period (late fourth millennium BCE), possibly from Umma in southern Iraq, recording livestock and grain in the archaic proto-cuneiform script. The surviving entries count young goats and sheep — including a large total of 126 animals — alongside a barley notation, the kind of tally an institutional administrator kept before writing could yet record spoken language. Its badly worn surface preserves only fragments of what was once a routine ledger of herds under central management.

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

Written in modern English

This is a badly damaged account of animals and grain. The readable entries say roughly: two of something under the NUN category; two young goats; one of something; one more of something; then a line too broken to read. A large-number section follows: sixty units connected with an allotment of barley, and a total of 126 sheep, with the final entry too damaged to make out. In modern terms, it is a stock ledger — an official noting how many goats and sheep passed through his hands, and a grain figure alongside them, with most of the surrounding detail now worn away.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

Obverse 1. [...] 2 (units) ..., NUN-b (category marker) [...] 2. [...] 2 (units) ..., young goats (MAŠ₂) 3. 1 (unit) ..., ... [...] 4. 1 (unit) ..., ... [...] 5. [...] , [...] Reverse(?) 6. 60 (1 N34) , [...] ... allotted(?) ... barley ... [...] 7. 126 (2 N34 + 6 N01) [...] , sheep [...] 8. [...] , [...] ...

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

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Transliteration

[...] 2(N01)# , NUN~b# [...]
[...] 2(N01)# , MASZ2#
1(N01)# , X [...]
1(N01)# , X [...]
[...] , [...]
1(N34) , [...] X BA SZE~a X [...]
2(N34)# 6(N01)# [...] , UDU~a# [...]
[...] , [...] X

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2680. 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: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006101) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-09-20/v8-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1