MS 3152

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P252163

About this tablet

This is a small clay administrative tablet from the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE, one of the earliest forms of writing in human history — a numerical-pictographic accounting record rather than a connected narrative text. It lists small quantities of livestock (rams, kid-goats, sheep) and an unidentified commodity, apparently tied to a storehouse and handled by an official titled something like 'fattener' (a livestock-tending role attested in this period's economic archives). Tablets like this were the bookkeeping backbone of early temple or palace institutions in southern Mesopotamia, tracking animals moving in and out of storage.

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

Written in modern English

This record tallies goods and livestock passing through a storehouse: seven units of one commodity, four rams, one unit of a special category, two large kid-goats, and two more kid-goats marked with a particular sign. The animals are logged as being in a storehouse associated with a place or authority called NUN, delivered under the oversight of an official known as the 'fattener' — someone responsible for livestock in the institution's herds. A second entry adds sixteen sheep to the same storehouse account, again passing through the same delivery process and the same fattener's charge. It is a terse bookkeeping note, not a story — a snapshot of animals and goods being counted and moved.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

7 units of UTUA~a. 4 units of UDUNITA~a (rams). 1 unit of NUN~b. 2 units of GAL~a MASZ2 (large kid-goats). 2 units of |U4x2(N57)| MASZ (kid-goats, U4x2(N57)-marked). In the storehouse (GA2~a1), (of) ZATU647, (of) NUN~a, delivered (GIR3~c) — (by) the fattener (GURUSZDA~a). 16 sheep (UDU~a), (of) ZATU647, storehouse (GA2~a1), (of) NUN~a, delivered (GIR3~c) — (by) the fattener (GURUSZDA~a).

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

7(N01) , UTUA~a
4(N01) , UDUNITA~a
1(N01) , NUN~b
2(N01) , GAL~a MASZ2
2(N01) , |U4x2(N57)| MASZ
, GA2~a1 ZATU647 NUN~a GIR3~c GURUSZDA~a
1(N14) 6(N01) , UDU~a ZATU647 GA2~a1 NUN~a GIR3~c
, GURUSZDA~a

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC) ?) — MS 3152. 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 (P252163) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

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~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1