Position in chronology
CDLI Lexical 000026, ex. 055
About this tablet
This is a tiny broken fragment of a proto-cuneiform lexical list from the Uruk period (roughly the late 4th millennium BCE), found at or attributed to Umma. It preserves a column of entries each marked with the numeral '1' followed by a sign — likely commodity or item names being enumerated in a standardized scribal list used to train apprentice scribes or to catalogue goods. The final line shows a different, larger numeral notation, possibly a subtotal, but the tablet breaks off before its meaning can be recovered. Texts like this are among the very first writing exercises in human history, predating connected sentences.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a short list, each line naming one unit of something: one of an unnamed item (now broken away), one of 'URI', one of 'MUD3' (in one form), one of 'MUD3' (in another form), and one of 'MIR'. Two more entries follow but are lost to breakage. The last surviving line carries a different, larger set of numerals in front of more broken signs — perhaps a running total — but the tablet snaps off before we can read what it counted.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N01), [...] 1(N01), URI 1(N01), MUD3~a(?) 1(N01), MUD3@g 1(N01), MIR~b 1(N01), [...] 1(N01), [...] 1(N34) 2(N14) [...], [...]
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
1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , URI# 1(N01) , MUD3~a#? 1(N01) , MUD3@g 1(N01) , MIR~b 1(N01) , [...] 1(N01) , [...] 1(N34) 2(N14) [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — CDLI Lexical 000026, ex. 055. 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 (P006214) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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