Position in chronology
MS 4540
About this tablet
This is a small clay account tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the late fourth millennium BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing, made at or near the city of Umma or Uruk in southern Iraq. It records quantities of barley and other goods allocated across several ruled compartments, each tagged with a proto-cuneiform sign for a personnel category or institution — a musician, a carpenter, a temple administrator, a plow-worker, and the city of Uruk itself. Texts like this are not yet full sentences but bookkeeping notations: the bureaucratic skeleton from which literacy and accounting both grew. Because the script is still pictographic and many signs have several possible readings, much of the precise meaning remains genuinely uncertain even to specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a ledger entry: four measured units of barley are recorded, followed by a numeric tally (nine of one count, three of another). The entry then lists what look like recipients or categories tied to an institution — possibly a brewery or malting house — including a 'new' or fresh allotment, a musician, and a substance that might be soapwort or natron. A second block names a carpenter, an amount of flour, and a temple official. A further count of three units is followed by what may be a supervising official, a day-count, and more barley. The account closes by naming the same institution again, then a plow-worker category, and finally the city of Uruk, with one compartment left blank. In short: a short administrative account distributing barley and goods among named institutional roles at or connected to Uruk.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Case 1) 4(N14) units — barley. 9(N19), 3(N04) (numerical notation). — ARARMA2 (institution, perhaps 'brewery'/malting-house), 'new'/fresh, [the] musician (NAR), soapwort/natron (NAGA)? — [the] carpenter (NAGAR), flour (ZI), [the] temple administrator (SANGA). 3(N19) — [the] overseer/total (PAP), day(s) (U4), barley(?) (SZE3). — ARARMA2 (institution). — plow-worker/plow-category (APIN), Uruk (UNUG). — (blank compartment / end of entry).
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
4(N14) , SZE~a# 9(N19) 3(N04) , , ARARMA2~a GIBIL NAR NAGA~a , NAGAR~b# ZI~a# SANGA~a# 3(N19)# , PAP~a# U4# SZE3#? , ARARMA2~a , APIN~a# UNUG~a# ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4540. 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 (P006320) — 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.