Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 086
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest accounting tablets in human history, dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE and found at or near the site of Jemdet Nasr in southern Iraq. It records quantities of beer (or another grain-based beverage) alongside livestock — specifically sheep — and other commodities whose signs are too damaged to read fully. The circular impressed numerals and pictographic commodity signs are characteristic of proto-cuneiform, the world's first writing system, used by temple administrators to track goods and rations. The tablet is fragmentary but preserves enough to show the systematic, columned layout that Uruk-period scribes used to manage large institutional economies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records several large consignments of what appears to be beer or a similar grain beverage, counted in substantial quantities, together with entries for sheep — one group of at least twelve (or more, depending on the numerical system) and another smaller group. Additional lines list further quantities of goods under the headings SZU2 (possibly a summary or container term), DUR~b (perhaps bundles or bound goods), and GI (possibly reeds). Many entries are damaged or broken, and the precise totals cannot be recovered. What survives reads like a temple storehouse ledger: so many units of this, so many animals of that.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine9(N20)[?] , |U4×(1(N14).8(N01))| |U4×1(N57)| KASZ~b 1(N34) 2(N01) [...] , sheep 6(N20) , [...] 2(N14)[?] [...] , [...] 3(N34)[?] [...] 1(N14)[?] [...] , sheep 1(N60) 2(N52) , 3(N14)[?] 5(N01) , SZU2 [...] 1(N34)[?] [...] , DUR~b [...] , GI[?] [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
9(N20)# , |U4x(1(N14).8(N01))| |U4x1(N57)| KASZ~b# 1(N34) 2(N01) [...] , UDU~a# 6(N20) , [...] 2(N14)# [...] , [...] 3(N34)# [...] 1(N14)# [...] , UDU~a 1(N60) 2(N52) , 3(N14)# 5(N01) , SZU2 [...] 1(N34)# [...] , DUR~b [...] , GI# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 086. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005153) — 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.