Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 002
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest written documents in human history, dating to around 3100–2900 BCE and originating from the Jemdet Nasr period of ancient Iraq. It is a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet — the writing is so early that it has not yet been fully deciphered, but the format is unmistakably administrative: quantities of goods (possibly grain, land areas, or livestock categories) recorded against institutional labels or responsible officials. The repeated use of large numerical signs suggests a summary or totalling tablet, aggregating figures from several sub-accounts. Objects like this are among the first pieces of evidence that humans used writing not to tell stories, but to keep track of property and transactions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several groups of counted items — the exact commodities are not fully legible to modern scholars, but the entries appear to track large quantities under headings that may indicate field areas, disbursement categories, or institutional offices (one entry references what looks like a high official designated 'EN'). A second entry is linked to a place or source marker; a third records a smaller quantity under a 'disbursement' or 'half' label; and the final line gives what may be a grand total, linked to further category signs, though the last portion of that line is broken and lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2(N45) 3(N50) 4(N14) : EN [field/category] GAN2 1(N45) 1(N50) 7(N14) : KI BU~a 1(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) : GISZ KI BAR 3(N45) 5(N50) 2(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) : GAN2 AB~a |NI~a.RU| IL# [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N45) 3(N50) 4(N14) , EN~a GAN2 1(N45) 1(N50) 7(N14) , KI BU~a 1(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) , GISZ KI BAR 3(N45) 5(N50) 2(N14) 2(N22) 5(N01) , GAN2 AB~a |NI~a.RU| IL# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 002. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005069) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.