Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 48
About this tablet
A badly fragmented proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Uruk, dating to around 3200–3000 BCE — among the very earliest written records in human history. The surviving entries record numerical quantities alongside signs for female workers or females, a cereal (barley or similar grain), and a term for food rations disbursed or consumed. It is likely a ration-distribution record, tracking allocations of grain to a group of women — perhaps female laborers attached to a large institutional household. Tablets like this are the bureaucratic backbone of the earliest Mesopotamian city-state economy, capturing the moment when writing was invented not for literature, but for bookkeeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several damaged entries tracking quantities of goods — most likely grain — distributed as rations. One line records a single unit alongside an unidentified commodity and a female worker or group of women. Another line notes barley consumed or disbursed. The final legible line gives a larger total: some combination of counted units associated with a ration disbursement. Much of the tablet is broken, and several entries cannot be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 1(N24), KALAM~b [...] PA~a [...] 1(N39~a), [...] NAGA~a [...], [...] SAL [...], GU7 1(N01), [X] SAL , SZE~a GU7 [...] 1(N14) 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24), [...] GU7
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] 1(N24)# , KALAM~b# [...] PA~a [...] 1(N39~a)# , [...] NAGA~a [...] , [...] SAL [...] , GU7# 1(N01) , X SAL , SZE~a# GU7# [...] 1(N14)# 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , [...] GU7#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 48. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005359) — 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.