Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 113
About this tablet
This is a small, badly broken clay tablet from the Uruk period administrative archive found at Jemdet Nasr, one of the very earliest writing systems in the world (roughly 3200-3000 BCE). Its surviving signs — jars of beer, sheep, reed mats, and reed-length measures, all attached to numerical notations — mark it as an economic accounting record, most likely tracking the receipt or disbursement of commodities under the authority of an official titled EN ("lord" or institutional head). Because so much of the tablet is missing, the exact transaction it recorded cannot be reconstructed, but it belongs to the same bureaucratic world as the earliest proto-cuneiform ration and offering lists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is an accounting record, though most of it is now missing. What survives lists quantities of goods — a jar of beer, some sheep, reed mats, and lengths measured in reed-units — each tallied with numerals in the old proto-cuneiform counting system. One entry mentions a high official or 'lord' (EN), and another uses a term that may mean something was 'received' or 'handed over.' The beginning and several lines throughout are broken away, and the tablet breaks off again near the end, so the full transaction — who gave what to whom, and why — cannot be recovered from what remains.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Column/Line 1) [...] , [...] (Line 2) [...] , [...] a jar(DUG) of beer(KASZ) [...] (Line 3) [...] 2(N20) 1(N05) , EN~a [lord/high official] ... [...] (Line 4) [...] , [...] (Line 5) 1(N34) 1(N14) [...] , sheep(UDU~a) (Line 6) 3(N52) 1(N38) 2(N21) , (Line 7) [...] 2(N01) , ŠU2 [received/disbursed] (Line 8) X [...] , [...] (Line 9) [...] , [...] (Line 10) [...] , reed-mat(KID~b) BAR [...] (Line 11) 1(N51) 2(N14) , |6(N57).GAR| [compound numeral/commodity notation] (Line 12) , X reed-unit(GI) [...] (Line 13) , |U4x5(N57)| reed-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
[...] , [...] [...] , [...] DUG~a# KASZ~a? [...] 2(N20)# 1(N05)# , EN~a X [...] [...] , [...] 1(N34) 1(N14) [...] , UDU~a# 3(N52) 1(N38) 2(N21) , [...] 2(N01)# , SZU2# X [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , KID~b# BAR# [...] 1(N51)# 2(N14)# , |6(N57).GAR|# , X GI# [...] , |U4x5(N57)| GI# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 113. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005180) — 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.