Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 031
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the late Uruk period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), probably from Jemdet Nasr in southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities — most likely including barley — distributed to or associated with named officials or institutional categories such as NIMGIR (possibly a herald or title-holder). This is one of the earliest forms of writing in human history: not yet a language in the full sense, but a system of tokens, numerals, and commodity signs used to track goods moving through a temple or palace economy. The tablet is badly cracked and the signs only partially legible, but even in this damaged state it offers a snapshot of how the world's first bureaucrats kept their accounts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several allocations of goods. The largest entry — 32 units (three large measures plus two smaller ones) — is assigned to a NIMGIR official, with a possible NIM qualifier (perhaps indicating an Elamite or eastern origin). Two separate entries of 10 units each are linked to a MU category and to what may be a 'hand' (receipt) notation. A smaller entry of four units follows, its recipient now lost. The final and clearest line records six large measures of barley. The middle lines are too damaged to read fully.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3(N14) 2(N01) — NIMGIR, NIM[~b1?] 1(N14) — MU[?], SZU 1(N14) — MU[?], [...] [4(N01)] — [...] [...] X, UB[?...] |SZU&SZU| 6(N14) — ŠE (barley)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(N14) 2(N01) , NIMGIR NIM~b1#? 1(N14) , MU# SZU 1(N14) , MU# [...] [4(N01)] , [...] , X UB# [...] |SZU&SZU| 6(N14) , SZE~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005098) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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.