Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 030
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from the Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period (roughly the last centuries of the 4th millennium BCE), among the very earliest writing in the world. It records quantities of barley — apparently including a 'new' or fresh batch — measured out and linked to a plow-team or official, a field, and a length-unit, the everyday bookkeeping of an early temple or palace economy. The signs are proto-cuneiform: numbers were impressed with round and wedge-shaped tools rather than written out as words, and many of the word-signs (like AN, ME, EN) had meanings that were still fluid this early, so much of the text resists a fully confident reading. It comes from Jemdet Nasr in southern Iraq and is now held in the British Museum.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tally records grain: a quantity of barley — described as 'new,' perhaps a fresh delivery or harvest — is entered against something called URI3, and the entry seems to note that it was allotted or distributed. A line is lost. Then comes a group involving a plow-team (or plowing work), an official or lord-figure, and a couple of terse marker-signs, followed by another break. Further down, more barley is recorded — first a smaller amount, then a separate tally of three units — and a final entry ties barley to a field, measured out by a fixed reed/rod length. In short: a scrap of grain accounting — deliveries, an official or work-team, a field, and a unit of measure — with two lines too damaged to recover.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2(N14) 2(N01), barley (ŠE), new — [of/for] URI3 — allotted (BA)? 2. [...], [...] 3. |ŠU&ŠU| — plow(-team) (APIN) — lord/high official (EN) — AN — ME(?) — ŠU [...] 4. 2(N14) 5(N01), barley (ŠE) 5. 3(N04), 6. 2(N14) 1(N19) 2(N01), |ŠU&ŠU| — barley (ŠE) — field (GAN2) — reed/rod-unit (GI)
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(N14) 2(N01) , SZE~a# GIBIL# URI3~a# BA#? [...] , [...] , |SZU&SZU|# APIN~a EN~a AN ME~a SZU [...] 2(N14)# 5(N01)# , SZE~a# 3(N04) , 2(N14) 1(N19) 2(N01) , |SZU&SZU| SZE~a GAN2 GI
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 030. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P005097) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.