Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 14
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform economic tablet from the Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing, from Uruk or a related southern Mesopotamian center. It records a series of short entries — quantities counted with archaic numeral notation, paired with terse labels for workers, a woman, a named individual (Šubur), commodities, and consumption or disbursement notices (GU7 'consumed', BA 'disbursed'). These proto-cuneiform texts are not connected prose but administrative tallies — inventories of goods, personnel, or rations kept by an early bureaucratic institution, likely a temple household, and they are among the oldest surviving human writing.
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, listing a series of quantities against brief labels: some wood or a foundation item, a male worker tied to a household, a woman associated with silver or purity, an individual named Šubur linked to a building, and something classified under 'AN' that was disbursed. Several following entries name goods or categories (MUD, TE, HI, KA, NIR, ŠU, BU) whose exact meaning is lost or unclear, some cut off by damage to the tablet. Two lines note that certain quantities were 'consumed,' and the text closes with an entry labeled SAG.ŠU, possibly a summary or heading term. As with most texts of this very early writing system, the individual entries function like tally-sheet notations rather than full sentences.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N40) 1(N24~a) — UR2 (base/foundation), wood. 2(N40) 1(N24~a) — GURUSZ (male worker), house. 4(N40) — MUŠ3 (a referent, twice-attested elsewhere), woman, KU3 (silver/pure). 2(N40) 1(N24~a) — Šubur (personal name), |E2×1(N57)@t| (a compound 'house'-sign). 3(N40) 1(N24~a) — AN, disbursed (BA). 3(N03) — MUD, AN, TE. 3(N03) — HI, KA. 3(N03) — NIR [...] (broken). 4(N03) — [...] (broken). 3(N40) — ŠU, BU. 2(N03) 2(N40) — HI, KA. — consumed/eaten (GU7). 3(N18) 4(N40) — consumed/eaten (GU7). — SAG.ŠU.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(N40) 1(N24~a) , UR2 GISZ 2(N40) 1(N24~a) , GURUSZ~a E2~a 4(N40) , MUSZ3~a SAL KU3~a 2(N40) 1(N24~a) , SZUBUR |E2~ax1(N57)@t| 3(N40) 1(N24~a) , AN BA 3(N03) , MUD AN TE 3(N03) , HI KA~a 3(N03) , NIR~a# [...] 4(N03) , [...] 3(N40) , SZU BU~a 2(N03) 2(N40) , HI KA~a , GU7# 3(N18) 4(N40) , GU7# , SAGSZU
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 14. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005325) — 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.