Position in chronology
Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl. Purchased via Christie's in 1989, with contribution from the British Museum Friends
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl. Purchased via Christie's in 1989, with contribution from the British Museum Friends.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet%2C_late_Uruk_period%2C_3300-3100_BCE._Proto-cuneiform_signs%2C_food_issue_list_%22_rations%22_written_by_combining_a_human_head_and_a_bowl._Purchased_via_Christie's_in_1989%2C_with_contribution_from_the_British_Museum_Friends.jpg. Description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl (the triangular object is the regular symbol for bread). In later Sumerian, it is the verb to eat.
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl (the triangular object is the regular symbol for bread). In
Attribution
Image: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl. Purchased via Christie's in 1989, with contribution from the British Museum Friends.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClay_tablet%2C_late_Uruk_period%2C_3300-3100_BCE._Proto-cuneiform_signs%2C_food_issue_list_%22_rations%22_written_by_combining_a_human_head_and_a_bowl._Purchased_via_Christie's_in_1989%2C_with_contribution_from_the_British_Museum_Friends.jpg. Description: Clay tablet, late Uruk period, 3300-3100 BCE. Proto-cuneiform signs, food issue list " rations" written by combining a human head and a bowl (the triangular object is the regular symbol for bread). In later Sumerian, it is the verb to eat..
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.
Part of the earliest known body of international diplomatic correspondence. Akkadian, written in cuneiform on clay, was the lingua franca of Late Bronze Age statecraft — used between Egypt, the Hittites, Mitanni, Babylon, Assyria, and the Levantine vassals.