Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 143
About this tablet
A fragmentary administrative tablet from the Uruk or Jemdet Nasr period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), now split into at least two joining pieces held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It records quantities of different commodities — most likely including reed goods (possibly matting), bundles, eggs or seed material, and silver or precious metal — under a series of numerical notations in the proto-cuneiform numerical system. The final line introduces what may be an official designation or institutional heading, but damage makes it impossible to read with certainty. This tablet is a window into the very earliest layer of human record-keeping, predating any readable written language.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists several commodity entries with quantities: one entry records units associated with bundles (DUR) and eggs or seed material (NUNUZ); another logs a count against a sign group that may denote a specific institutional category (ZATU800) paired with GISZ; a further entry records five units of what are probably reed mats or woven goods (KID), possibly indicating half-portions or distributed shares (BAR); and a large quantity notation (two large units) is paired with what appears to be silver or a precious metal designation. The closing line — partially lost — seems to name an official, overseer, or institutional heading, but the rest is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 3(N05) 3(N42~a), 5(N01), DUR~b NUNUZ~a1 [...] 1(N34), ZATU800 GISZ [...] 5(N01), KID~b [BAR] [...] 2(N14)[?], |5(N57).KU3~a|[?] , |NI~a.RU|[?] PA~a GIR3@g~b X [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] 3(N05)# 3(N42~a) , 5(N01) , DUR~b NUNUZ~a1 [...] 1(N34) , ZATU800 GISZ [...] 5(N01) , KID~b# BAR [...] 2(N14)# , |5(N57).KU3~a|# , |NI~a.RU|#? PA~a# GIR3@g~b# X [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 143. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005210) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.