Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 64
About this tablet
This is a small clay accounting tablet from the city of Uruk, made at the very dawn of writing, sometime in the later fourth millennium BCE (the 'Uruk period'). It records amounts of goods — very likely grain and related commodities — allotted to a handful of titled officials or institutions (a 'KINGAL,' a 'lord,' a female worker, and others), using the earliest known number-and-word notation system, before true syllabic writing existed. Tablets like this one are the bureaucratic bedrock of the world's first cities: someone in an Uruk household or temple office was tracking who received what, and how much.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a ledger entry. It lists several quantities — recorded with early number-marks rather than modern numerals — issued to different officials and categories: one amount for the 'great' official (KINGAL), one for the boundary/shrine officer, one for the lord and a female worker, and one for another 'great' title-holder. A further line, without a clear number left on it, names a reddish commodity along with what may be an oil and something described as 'disbursed.' The reverse gives what looks like a summary or total: another quantity, again described as barley together with additional commodities including a spice or aromatic and the same reddish and oil terms seen above. In short: a record of goods, chiefly grain, being handed out to a set of officials and workers, closing with a grand total — though the exact commodities and job titles remain only partly understood at this early stage of writing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 1(N34) 2(N45) 4(N14) , KINGAL — [a quantity, notated in the archaic numeral system] for the KINGAL ("great queen"/chief official) 8(N14) 1(N01) , ZAG BARA — a quantity for the ZAG-BARA (boundary/dais official, shrine-related) 7(N14) , EN SAL — a quantity for the EN (lord/priest) (and) SAL (woman/female worker) 1(N34) 3(N14) , GAL TE — a quantity for the GAL-TE ("great TE") SI4 BA NI SA — [commodity notation, no numeral preserved]: reddish (commodity), disbursed, oil(?), ... Reverse: 3(N34) 1(N45) 2(N14) 1(N01) , SZE KU SZIM SI4 BA NI SA — [total quantity]: barley, KU, aromatic/spice, reddish (commodity), disbursed, oil(?), ...
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
1(N34) 2(N45) 4(N14) , KINGAL 8(N14) 1(N01) , ZAG~a BARA3 7(N14) , EN~c SAL 1(N34) 3(N14) , GAL~a TE SI4~f BA NI~a SA~c 3(N34) 1(N45) 2(N14) 1(N01) , SZE~a KU~b2 SZIM~a SI4~f BA NI~a SA~c
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 64. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005375) — 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.