Position in chronology
MS 4568
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the later fourth millennium BCE), one of the earliest kinds of writing in the world. It appears to be an economic account tracking quantities of barley and fish, possibly disbursed to or associated with a storage area or courtyard (kisal) of an institution — perhaps a temple or redistributive household — along with a category of dependent workers or animals (ur5). The bottom line, with its distinct round and combined numeral signs, is a summary total tying the itemized entries above to a final tally. Much of the text is broken or worn, so the precise transaction — rations, deliveries, or stock counts — cannot be reconstructed with certainty.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a fragmentary bookkeeping tablet. The beginning of each line is lost, but what survives lists small quantities — numbers followed by commodity or category markers: something involving barley, fish, possibly clay or sealed material, and a group described with a term that could mean 'workers' or 'dependents' or, less likely, 'dogs.' Several entries mention a courtyard or storage area, suggesting these goods were being tracked in or out of an institutional compound. A ruled line separates the itemized entries from a final total line, which records a combined quantity of barley, fish, and the same storage area, tallying up what came before. The tablet is too damaged and the sign values too archaic to say more specifically what event — a delivery, ration, or inventory — this record represents.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) [...] 2(N01) , [...] KI MUD BU~a [break in surface / signs eroded] [...] X , IM~a [...] SZE~a ("barley") [...] , [...] X UR5~a [...] , [...] X KU6~a ("fish") KISAL~b1 ("courtyard/storage-area") (ruled dividing line) (Reverse / totals line) 3(N14) 2(N01) 2(N39~a) , SZE~a ("barley") DA~a KU6~a ("fish") KISAL~b1? ("courtyard/storage-area")
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
[...] 2(N01)# , [...] KI MUD# BU~a# [...] X , IM~a [...] SZE~a [...] , [...] X UR5~a , [...] X KU6~a# KISAL~b1 , 3(N14) 2(N01) 2(N39~a) , SZE~a# DA~a# KU6~a# KISAL~b1#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 4568. 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 (P006337) — 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.