Position in chronology
MS 2900/29
About this tablet
This is a tiny, badly broken fragment of a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, likely from Umma in southern Iraq — among the very earliest writing in human history, predating readable sentences. What survives is a column of numeral notations paired with commodity signs, the format typical of an early accounting record tracking goods or rations, but almost none of the entries are complete enough to say what was actually being counted.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a fragment of an early bookkeeping tablet, broken into several pieces, recording quantities next to commodity signs — one entry lists a quantity of '1' next to a sign combination read as KU and NI, likely naming some kind of foodstuff or fish/oil-related good, though this can't be confirmed. Other lines list further quantities ('2', '1', '1') paired with signs too damaged or unclear to identify. Both the beginning and end of the text are lost, and most of what remains is illegible breaks — only these numeral-plus-commodity fragments survive from what was once a fuller accounting entry.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) [...], [...] [...], [...] X [...] 1(N01), KU~b1 NI~a [...], [...] [...] 1(N01), [...] 2(N01), X [...] 1(N01), X [...] 1(N01) [...], [...] [...], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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
[...] , [...] [...] , [...] X [...] 1(N01) , KU~b1# NI~a# [...] , [...] [...] 1(N01)# , [...] 2(N01)# , X [...] 1(N01)# , X [...] 1(N01)# [...] , [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2900/29. 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 (P006237) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
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.