Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 048
About this tablet
This is a small clay administrative tablet from the archaic Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), among the very earliest writing on earth — decades or centuries before true sentences existed in cuneiform. It is a numerical account, mixing tally-marks (impressed circles and wedge shapes for quantities) with a handful of pictographic signs standing for commodities and institutions: barley, a livestock pen, a storehouse, and officials or supervisors overseeing the goods. Tablets like this one from Jemdet Nasr recorded the movement of grain, animals, and other stores through an early temple or palace economy, the bookkeeping backbone of one of the first cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This looks like a stock ledger. One entry records 5 units of an implement or commodity connected with the city of Uruk, involving barley and overseen by a lord or senior official. Another entry lists 1 unit plus 2 more of what may be a she-goat. A further line records 1 unit tied to a livestock pen and a storehouse. Later lines mention an official again, a storage bin holding several counted units, and repeated references to goods being 'received' (literally 'in hand') and, in one line, apparently measured out with a reed and formally disbursed. The tablet breaks off after that, and the remaining lines — several more numbered entries — are too fragmentary to say what they recorded, though they clearly continue the same kind of tallying.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5(N14) — SZITA~a1 (implement/spear-sign), (of) Uruk, ... barley, EN~a (the lord/high official) 1(N45) 2(N01) — UD5~a(?) (goat/she-goat) 1(N14) — AB~b (cattle-pen), E2~a (storehouse) 3(N01) — EN~a (the lord/official), TU~b 3(N14) 5(N01) 3(N39~a) — UB (storage bin/compartment), 1(N04) 2(N14) 2(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) — |SZU&SZU| (hands/receipt[s]) [...] 3(N14) — ... PAP~a (supervisory/summary marker), GI (measuring reed), BA (disbursed), SZU (received) [...] 4(N19) — ... [...] 2(N19) 2(N04) — [...] 4(N14) [...] — [...] 1(N19) — SZU (received) [...]
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
5(N14)# , SZITA~a1# UNUG~a# X SZE~a EN~a# 1(N45) 2(N01) , UD5~a#? 1(N14) , AB~b E2~a# 3(N01) , EN~a TU~b# 3(N14)# 5(N01) 3(N39~a) , UB 1(N04) 2(N14) 2(N01)# 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , |SZU&SZU|# [...] 3(N14)# , X PAP~a GI BA SZU# [...] 4(N19) , X [...] 2(N19) 2(N04) , [...] 4(N14)# [...] , [...] 1(N19) , SZU# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 048. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005115) — 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.