Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 047
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the late Uruk or Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), now held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It records quantities of barley and possibly other commodities distributed to or managed under named institutional categories — among them what appear to be a workforce group (ERIM), an official or lord (EN), and a dependent or servant class (SZUBUR). The reverse carries summary totals, as is typical for Uruk-period accounting tablets. Such documents are among the very earliest writing in human history, used not for literature or law but for tracking grain and labor across large temple or palace institutions in ancient southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet tracks deliveries or allocations of barley and related commodities to various institutional categories: a labor gang of 24, a group of 21 associated with oil and grain, further entries of 14 each tied to uncertain officials or categories, and smaller amounts linked to a lord, a ritual object or house, and a class of dependents. The back of the tablet carries running totals. Much of the detail is too damaged to recover fully, but the overall picture is a carefully kept grain ledger.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: [Line 1] 24 — barley (?) [and/or] workforce/people (ERIM) [Line 2] 21 [...] — oil/fat (NI) (and) barley (?), [...] [Line 3] 14 — [RU?] [...] [Line 4] 14 — [A?] sea/father/official (AB) [...] [Line 5] 1 [...] — [...] [...] [Line 6] [...] — [...] [Line 7] 11 — lord/official (EN) [and] DU [...] [Line 8] 10 — [...] weapon/cult-object (SZITA) house/institution (E2) [...] [Line 9] [...] — [...] servant/dependent (SZUBUR) TE [...] [Line 10] [...] — [...] Reverse / Summary line(s): [Line 11] 1(N14) 1(N58) 6(N14) 1(N01) 3(N08)? — barley [Line 12] 5(N19)? 2(N08b)? — TE [Line 13] 1(N14) 1(N58) 1(N14) 2(N01) — [...] barley [...]
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)# 4(N01)# , SZE~a# X ERIM~a# 2(N14)# 1(N01)# [...] , NI~a# SZE~a# X 1(N14)# 4(N01)# , RU#? X 1(N14)# 4(N01)# , A#? AB~a#? X 1(N01)# [...] , [...] X [...] , [...] 1(N14)# 1(N01)# , EN~a# DU# X 1(N14)# , [...] SZITA~a1# E2~a# X [...] , [...] SZUBUR# TE# X [...] , [...] 1(N14) 1(N58) 6(N14) 1(N01) 3(N08)? , SZE~a 5(N19)#? 2(N08~b)#? , TE# 1(N14) 1(N58) 1(N14) 2(N01) , X SZE~a# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 047. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005114) — 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.