MS 2964

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P006250

About this tablet

This small clay tablet is one of the earliest forms of writing in the world, from Uruk-period southern Mesopotamia (roughly 3300–3100 BCE), long before cuneiform script or true sentences existed. It is a bookkeeping tablet: rows of impressed circles and wedges record numerical quantities — using several different archaic counting systems side by side — attached to a grain sign and two other commodity signs whose exact meaning has not yet been deciphered. Tablets like this come from the earliest bureaucracies of city temples or palaces, keeping track of grain and goods moving in and out of storage. Even though we cannot read every sign, the layout itself — numbers divided by ruled lines, commodity totals, a summary at the bottom — shows an accountant already organizing information the way modern ledgers still do.

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

Written in modern English

This is an old inventory sheet. It lists a quantity of grain, then two amounts of some other goods (we don't yet know exactly what they were — maybe foodstuffs or manufactured items), then another quantity of grain, and finally a fifth line that looks like a running total or closing figure. The numbers are written with the earliest number system used in Mesopotamia, mixing a few different counting notations, which was normal for this very early period of writing. Nothing here is narrative — it is a plain tally, the kind of record a warehouse keeper would have kept to track what came in and went out.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

1. 1(N45) 5(N34) , grain (ŠE₃) 2. 1(N45) 3(N48) 3(N34) 5(N14) , commodity-sign ZATU837~a (undeciphered) 3. 1(N48) 8(N34) 3(N14) 6(N01) , commodity-sign ZATU837~b (undeciphered) 4. 1(N48) 8(N34) 1(N14) 2(N01) , grain (ŠE₃) 5. 3(N45) 1(N48) 5(N34) 4(N14) , [total / final entry, commodity not specified]

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

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Transliteration

1(N45) 5(N34) , SZE3
1(N45) 3(N48) 3(N34) 5(N14) , ZATU837~a
1(N48) 8(N34) 3(N14) 6(N01) , ZATU837~b
1(N48) 8(N34) 1(N14) 2(N01) , SZE3
3(N45) 1(N48) 5(N34) 4(N14) ,

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 2964. 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 (P006250) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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