Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 64
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3100–3000 BCE), one of the very earliest forms of writing in human history. It records quantities of goods — most likely cereals, animal products, or commodities distributed to named institutional categories such as KINGAL ('great queen'?), EN SAL (a female EN-official?), and others. The tablet comes from Uruk in southern Iraq, the city where writing was invented, and it is part of a large archive of economic records that show how a complex urban economy was managed before fully phonetic writing existed. Its value lies precisely in its difficulty: these signs stand at the threshold between pictographic accounting and true script.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several separate commodity allocations. One entry assigns a large quantity to the KINGAL category; another assigns 81 units to ZAG-BARA3; seven units go to the EN SAL (a female high-official); and a further quantity goes to GAL TE. A closing formula — SI4, BA, NI, SA — appears to mark the nature or status of the disbursement. The largest single entry, totalling over three hundred units, records an allocation of barley (or a related cereal) together with KU, aromatic SZIM, and the same closing disbursement formula. Much of the precise meaning of the institutional titles and quality markers remains uncertain.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(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) — barley, KU~b2, SZIM~a, SI4~f BA NI~a SA~c
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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-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.