Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 57
About this tablet
This is a very small, worn proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, one of the earliest kinds of writing in the world (roughly the late 4th millennium BCE). It appears to be a tally of commodities — jars, beer, barley, and other goods marked with impressed and incised numeral signs — kept by an early bookkeeper, likely tracking rations, deliveries, or stored goods for a temple or institutional household in or near the city of Uruk. Because the script is still pictographic and many signs have no fixed later meaning, much of the tablet's precise content (what exactly was 'given', what the calf-sign and MUSZ3-sign designate) remains genuinely uncertain to modern scholars.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This little clay tablet is an accounting note. The top of the record is broken away. The surviving lines list quantities of goods — a jar of something (4 units of one measure, 1 of another), then an entry of 2 units described as 'given' or 'deposited,' tied to a reed or length-measure. Another line is too damaged to read except for a final sign of uncertain meaning. Later lines record beer (3 and 1 units of two different counting systems) and, in the last surviving line, several numeral notations followed by the word 'barley,' with the rest lost to breakage. In short: an early scribe's tally of jars, beer, and barley — the specifics of who received what, and why, no longer survive intact.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) Line 1: [...] , [...] X (broken entry, sign not identifiable) Line 2: 4(N39) 1(N24) , jar(DUG) 1(N57) |3(N57).calf(AMAR)|(?) — [quantities N39=4, N24=1; commodity: a jar-vessel; a further notation of 1(N57) combined with the 'calf' sign, reading uncertain] Line 3: 2(N01) , given/deposited(RU) — water/A — measuring-reed(GI) [quantity 2(N01); an entry recording something 'given' or 'deposited', qualified by A and a reed/length-measure] Line 4: [...] , [...] X — MUSZ3 [broken entry ending in the sign MUSZ3, referent unclear] Line 5: 3(N39) 1(N28) , beer(KASZ) X [quantities N39=3, N28=1; commodity: beer, followed by an unidentified sign] Line 6: 1(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39) 1(N24)(?) 1(N28)(?) [...] , barley(ŠE) [...] [a summary/total-looking line with multiple numeral notations (N14, N01, N39, N24, N28), followed by the commodity barley; the remainder is broken]
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
[...] , [...] X 4(N39~a) 1(N24) , DUG~a 1(N57) |3(N57).AMAR|#? 2(N01) , RU A GI [...] , [...] X MUSZ3~a 3(N39~a) 1(N28) , KASZ~b X 1(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24)#? 1(N28)#? [...] , SZE~a# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 57. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005368) — 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.