Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 002
About this tablet
This is a numerical account tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the late fourth millennium BCE), found at Jemdet Nasr in southern Iraq — one of the very earliest stages of writing, when scribes recorded quantities with impressed numeral signs alongside a handful of pictographic word-signs rather than full sentences. The surviving lines tally quantities (using several different counting systems, shown here as N45/N50/N14/N22/N01) against terms for 'field,' 'wood,' a locative 'at/from,' a disbursement or portion marker, and an institutional category possibly meaning cattle-stall or storehouse. It reads like a running ledger of land, produce, or wood allotments overseen by a high official (EN), the everyday bookkeeping of an early Mesopotamian institution — though many of the individual sign meanings remain genuinely debated among specialists. The photo shows the tablet has many more numeral-filled cases across obverse and reverse than the four lines transcribed here, meaning this transliteration likely covers only part of what is inscribed on the object.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This clay tablet is a tally sheet. It records four separate entries, each opening with a string of numbers (counted in different measuring systems used for area, volume, or objects) followed by a short label. The first entry ties its quantity to 'the lord' and a 'field'; the second to a place or source and a term that might mean 'plucked' or a plant; the third to 'wood' and a portion or share at a given location; and the fourth — the largest set of numbers — to a field and what looks like a cattle-yard or storage institution, with a further note about something being 'given' or 'deposited.' The final entry breaks off, so the rest of what was recorded there is lost. Altogether it reads like a scribe's running count of land, wood, and stored goods for an early administrative office, though the fine details of what exactly was being measured and moved cannot be pinned down with certainty.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2(N45) 3(N50) 4(N14) — (entry): EN(-a), field (GAN2) 2. 1(N45) 1(N50) 7(N14) — (entry): at/from (KI), BU(-a) 3. 1(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) — (entry): wood (GIŠ), at/from (KI), portion (BAR) 4. 3(N45) 5(N50) 2(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) — (entry): field (GAN2), cattle-stall/institutional store (AB-a), NI(-a).RU (given/deposited), IL [...] (broken — text lost)
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
2(N45) 3(N50) 4(N14) , EN~a GAN2 1(N45) 1(N50) 7(N14) , KI BU~a 1(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) , GISZ KI BAR 3(N45) 5(N50) 2(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) , GAN2 AB~a |NI~a.RU| IL# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 002. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005069) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.