Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 49
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3350–3000 BCE), among the very earliest writing anywhere. It is a bookkeeping record — not a story or letter — tracking quantities of malt and barley, one entry explicitly tied to the city of Shuruppak (later famous as the home of the flood-hero Ziusudra) and another to an overseer official (kingal). Such tablets were the working paperwork of early temple or palace granaries, recording grain products moving in and out under named officials and places.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a grain account. It records a quantity disbursed at a certain place, then a separate amount of malt marked with an overseer's notation, followed by another batch of malt specifically identified as coming from Shuruppak. Further down it lists an amount of barley connected to a bird-emblem, then a puzzling trio of terms that may refer to a reddish commodity, oil or fat, and a bundle or measure — the exact sense is lost to us. The tablet closes with a final quantity of barley credited to the overseer (kingal). Altogether it reads like a supervisor's tally of malt and barley moving through a granary or storehouse, with Shuruppak named as one source of the grain.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(N34) 3(N14) — disbursed (ba), at/from (ki) [...] 1(N45) — homeland/land (kalam), malt (bulug₃), overseer-mark (pa) 7(N14) 3(N01) — malt (bulug₃) of Shuruppak 1(N45) — bird(-sign), barley (še) — reddish (si₄), oil/fat(?) (ni), bundle(?) (sa) 2(N34) 3(N01) — barley (še), (the) overseer (kingal)
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
1(N34) 3(N14) , BA KI 1(N45) , KALAM~b BULUG3 PA~a 7(N14) 3(N01) , BULUG3 SZURUPPAK~b 1(N45) , MUSZEN SZE~a , SI4~f NI~a SA~c 2(N34) 3(N01) , SZE~a KINGAL
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 49. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P005360) — 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.