Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 025
About this tablet
One of the earliest administrative records known to history, written in proto-cuneiform at Jemdet Nasr (ancient Iraq) around 3000–3100 BCE. It appears to record quantities of commodities — probably barley, fish, and possibly beer — alongside signs that may denote scribal tablets or reed containers used in an institutional economy. Tablets like this one are not yet fully deciphered: the signs stand at the very beginning of writing, before the system matured into readable Sumerian, so their exact meaning remains partly uncertain. What is clear is that they represent the ancient Near East's earliest experiment in large-scale economic record-keeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This record tracks several commodities — roughly 23 units of barley (or a similar grain) measured in multiple numerical denominations, together with fish and possibly beer, apparently associated with reed containers or scribal tablets. The reverse repeats elements of the same account: fish and a tablet or reed notation appear again, suggesting a two-sided summary of the same transaction or institutional allocation. Several entries are too damaged or too early in the writing system's development to read with confidence.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: [Numerical notation:] 2(N14) 3(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) — barley [and/or ...] — tablet / scribe(?) — reed — fish + 1(N02) — beer(?) — [cereal?] [Reverse, damaged:] [...] — [...] — fish + 1(N02) — tablet / scribe(?) — reed
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N14) 3(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a [...] , DUB~a GI |KU6~a.1(N02)| , KASZ~c# ZI~a [...] , [...] |KU6~a.1(N02)| DUB~a GI
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 025. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P005092) — 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.