Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 44
About this tablet
This is a fragment of an administrative account tablet from Uruk, dating to the very early phase of writing (roughly 3300–3100 BCE), when scribes were still developing the proto-cuneiform script using pictographic signs and numerical notations rather than a full syllabic language. Each line pairs a quantity — recorded with archaic numeral impressions — against a commodity or title sign, the standard format for tracking goods, rations, or personnel in an early institutional household. The individual signs (titles like 'lord/overseer,' terms for 'storehouse,' 'fire/fuel,' and 'wood') suggest this was some kind of disbursement or receipt record, but heavy damage to the tablet's surface makes the exact transaction impossible to reconstruct. It is a small but genuine window into the bookkeeping of one of the world's first cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken clay tablet is an accounting record from ancient Uruk, one of the earliest cities to use writing. It lists a series of quantities next to short notations — some naming an official or overseer, others naming goods such as items from a storehouse, fuel, or wood. Because the script is still pictographic and much of the tablet is chipped away, we can't say exactly what was being counted or distributed — grain, tools, or something else — only that an official ledger of some kind was being kept, tracking amounts against categories or people. The last legible line seems to name an overseer or foreman (kingal), suggesting the record involved supervised labor or supplies, but the rest of the entry, and the tablet's other side, is lost to breakage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 5(N14) — SAG […] ("head/chief" [broken]) 2. 2(N19) — EN GA2 ME [x] ("lord/overseer" — "storehouse" — "ME-mark" — [sign broken]) 3. 2(N14) — PA […] ("overseer/mark" [broken]) 4. 1(N14) — […] (entirely broken) 5. 1(N14) — NE PAP ("fire/fuel" — "PAP-mark") 6. 4(N04) — GIŠ.TE EN […] ("wood/TE-compound" — "lord/overseer" [broken]) 7. […] — […] KINGAL ("overseer/foreman") 8. […] — […] (entirely broken)
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
5(N14) , SAG# [...] 2(N19) , EN~a GA2~a1 ME~a X 2(N14) , PA~a# [...] 1(N14)# , [...] 1(N14) , NE~a PAP~a 4(N04) , |GISZ.TE| EN~a# [...] [...] , [...] KINGAL [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 44. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005355) — 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.