Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 118
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from the Uruk or Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), one of the earliest experiments in writing in human history. It records the distribution or allocation of quantities — almost certainly rations or work assignments — to different categories of people: potters, male laborers, and a woman associated with precious metal or a cultic office. The tablet is so heavily damaged that only fragments of the original account survive, but even in this state it shows the bureaucratic logic behind proto-cuneiform writing: tracking who received what, and how much. It is held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and comes most likely from Jemdet Nasr, a site in southern Iraq where early urban administration was already highly organised.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The surviving lines record allocations to three groups: three units each to a potter, to male workers, and to a woman connected with silver or a precious commodity (possibly a cultic role). Then two units to a party whose name or title is lost, followed by single-unit entries that are too broken to read. The reverse face is too damaged to recover any text. The rest of the tablet is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 3 [units], [...] potter (BAHAR2~b) 3 [units], male worker (GURUSZDA) [...] 3 [units], woman (SAL) — silver/precious metal (KU3~a), day/sun (U4), water/liquid (A), noble/eminent (NUN~a) 2 [units], [...], [...] 1 [unit], [...], [...] 1 [unit], [...], [...] Reverse: [too damaged to read]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
3(N01)# , [...] BAHAR2~b 3(N01)# , GURUSZDA# [...] 3(N01)# , SAL KU3~a U4# A NUN~a 2(N01)# [...] , [...] 1(N01) [...] , [...] 1(N01)# [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 118. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005185) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-18/v5-modern-rendering).
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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.