Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 43
About this tablet
This is a small clay tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the later 4th millennium BCE), inscribed in the earliest known writing system — proto-cuneiform. It is a short administrative list recording quantities of goods or commodities (possibly bread, fish, and other rations) tallied against sign-groups that likely name institutions, officials, or categories of recipients. The final line, ending in the 'storehouse' sign (E2), suggests the tablet closes with an institutional or accounting notation, typical of the bookkeeping records kept by early Mesopotamian temple or palace administrations. Because the script is at the very dawn of writing, many of its individual signs remain only partially understood by modern scholars.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a brief tally sheet. It records 2 units of one commodity (marked with a bread/ration sign), 5 units of something tied to a 'gate' sign, 1 unit counted in a different numeral system next to signs for 'day' and 'fish', and 2 units of carp or a fish-related commodity. The next line names a few more items — a fire or fuel sign, a vessel or mace sign, and a supervisory or summary mark — but the surface is damaged and the exact words are lost. The tablet closes with a line pointing to a storehouse or building, followed by a sign that may mean rope, flax, or serve a grammatical function. Overall it reads like a short warehouse or ration accounting note, though the precise goods and recipients can't be fully recovered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 (units) — NINDA₂×U4 (bread/ration sign) 2. 5 (units) — KA₂ ("gate") 3. 1 (N51-unit) — U4 KU₆ ("day" + "fish") 4. 2 (units) — SUHUR (carp/fish) 5. — NE, ŠITA, [illegible sign], PAP, [...] (broken) 6. — LAGAB×PA(?), E₂ (storehouse/building), GU
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
2(N01@f) , |NINDA2xU4| 5(N01@f) , KA2~b 1(N51) , U4 KU6~a 2(N01@f) , SUHUR , NE~a SZITA~a3 X PAP~a [...] , |LAGAB~axPA~a|? E2~a GU
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 43. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Bodmer Museum, Cologny, Switzerland (P005354) — 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.