Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 30
About this tablet
This is an early proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), almost certainly from southern Iraq. It records quantities of commodities and institutional categories — likely livestock, raw materials such as wool or reeds, and building or storage-related entries — distributed across several administrative units. The numerical notations use the standard Uruk sexagesimal and bisexagesimal systems, with the large numerical sign N57 at the head suggesting a substantial quantity or a summary entry. It is one of the earliest examples of writing being used purely to track institutional resources, predating readable Sumerian prose by several centuries.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a large quantity assigned to a storehouse or border/accounting unit. A smaller amount follows under a supervisory or elder category, again linked to a building. Subsequent single-unit entries record: a horn or thorn commodity alongside a reed-bundle and an interior designation; a stone or mineral object with a fire/fuel sign, a container, and a dispersal marker; a cattle-stall entry with wool and a place-name linked to a storehouse; a reed-bundle with an interior, a storehouse, matting, an EN-official, a collection action, and a ration or life sign; a side or rib entry with a ceramic vessel and a cow; and finally a goat entry connecting a storehouse, a cattle-stall, and a location. The rest of the reverse is too worn to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N57) ZAG~a, E2~a, UBI~c 1(N05) PAP~a, NAM2, E2~a 1(N01) SI, ZATU786, |GI&GI|#, SZA3~a1 1(N01) NA~a, NE~a, SZEN~c@t, BU~a 1(N01) AB~a, SIG2~d2?, URI, E2~a 1(N01) |GI&GI|, SZA3~a1, E2~a, KID~b, KID~b, EN~a, UR4~b, TI 1(N01) DA~a, |DUG~bxDIN|, AB2 1(N01) MASZ2, E2~a, AB~a, KI
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
, 1(N57) ZAG~a E2~a UBI~c 1(N05) , PAP~a NAM2 E2~a 1(N01) , SI ZATU786 |GI&GI|# SZA3~a1 1(N01) , NA~a NE~a SZEN~c@t BU~a 1(N01) , AB~a SIG2~d2? URI E2~a 1(N01) , |GI&GI| SZA3~a1 E2~a KID~b KID~b EN~a UR4~b TI 1(N01) , DA~a |DUG~bxDIN| AB2 1(N01) , MASZ2 E2~a AB~a KI
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 30. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: private: unknown, unlocated (P005341) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.