Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 003
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), one of the very earliest writing systems in the world, made only a few centuries after the invention of cuneiform at Uruk. Its five compartments record quantities — probably measures of field area — tied to an official titled EN ('lord' or high administrator) and an institution or storekeeper marked ŠAGAN, ending in what looks like a summary or total line. Texts like this belong to the earliest bureaucratic recordkeeping of Mesopotamian city administration, tracking land, produce, or labor allotments rather than telling a story — the accounting backbone of an early city-state.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short accounting record. The first entry, now partly broken, lists some amount of field land under the authority of an official or storehouse called ŠAGAN. The second entry records a quantity — written in the old numeral system as 4 of one unit, 9 of another, and 1 of a third — assigned to an official called the 'EN' in connection with a field. A third entry records another quantity tied to a place and a sign called BU. A fourth records a small quantity connected to 'wood,' a place, and a term BAR, possibly marking a category or portion. The tablet closes with what appears to be a grand total — combining several numeral signs — again referencing a field, a place, and the ŠAGAN institution. In short: a field-and-goods ledger from a very early city bureaucracy, its exact figures and terms only partly recoverable today.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Case 1) [...] field(s) — place — ŠAGAN (official/vessel-sign). (Case 2) 4(N50) 9(N14) 1(N22) — EN (lord/high official) — field. (Case 3) 2(N50) 4(N14) 2(N22) — place — BU. (Case 4) 4(N08) — wood — place — BAR. (Case 5, total) 1(N45) 1(N50) 4(N14) 4(N08) — LAGAB (total/enclosure) — field — place — ŠAGAN.
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
, [...] GAN2# KI# SZAGAN 4(N50)# 9(N14)# 1(N22) , EN~a# GAN2# 2(N50)# 4(N14)# 2(N22)# , KI BU~a# 4(N08) , GISZ KI# BAR 1(N45)# 1(N50) 4(N14) 4(N08)# , LAGAB~b# GAN2 KI# SZAGAN#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 003. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005070) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.