c. 3400 BCE–c. 3200 BCE
Proto-cuneiform tablets: resource and labour accounting
Población, migración y ciudades · Administración · Trabajo · Registro escrito
The earliest proto-cuneiform tablets record rations and labour for categorised groups—such as temple personnel and textile workers—alongside grain and livestock. They are documentary precedent for labour-linked administrative counting, not a general census of inhabitants.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · approximate
- End
- year · approximate
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- Date not recorded
Reading the date: dating window; it does not mean the event lasted for that entire interval.
Sources
- www.metmuseum.org (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- Pending verification: the source could not be accessed
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.