MSVO 1, 172

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P005239

About this tablet

A small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period, probably originating from or connected to the site of Jemdet Nasr in southern Iraq, dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE. It records quantities of commodities — including what appears to be apples, barley, oil or fat, and possibly other goods — along with institutional or locative markers that may identify the city of Uruk as a source or destination. The tablet belongs to the very earliest phase of writing, when Mesopotamian administrators used a pictographic system to track the flow of goods through large organizations. Most of the signs remain only partly legible due to surface erosion and breakage, but the tablet is a characteristic example of the impersonal, formulaic ledger-keeping that gave rise to writing itself.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

The opening entries are broken and unreadable. What survives records: a jar or vessel of some kind; a receipt or disbursement transaction; five units of apples; one container-unit of something unspecified; one assembly or collective grouping; a remainder or leftover allocation at a place associated with the NUN-institution; one container-measure of barley; a deposit or allocation of oil or fat; three units of MUSZ3 (commodity unclear); and a closing reference to the city of Uruk. The rest of the tablet is too damaged to read.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

[...], vessel (DUG-type)# [...], received/disbursed (SZU2) [...], [...] [...], [...] X 5 (units), apple(s)# 1 (unit), [container/storehouse of X]# 1 (unit), assembly# NUN~a TAK4~a KI# (remainder/leftover at [the NUN-place/institution]?) 1 (unit), [GA2~a1-type container] of barley |NI~a.RU| (oil/fat given/deposited?) 3 (units), MUSZ3~a Uruk

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

[...] , |DUG~cx1(N57)|#
[...] , SZU2
[...] , [...]
[...] , [...] X
5(N01) , HASZHUR#
1(N01) , |GA2~a1xX|#
1(N01) , UKKIN~a#
, NUN~a# TAK4~a# KI#
1(N01) , |GA2~a1xSZA| SZE~a
, |NI~a.RU|
, 3(N57) MUSZ3~a
, UNUG~a

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 172. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005239) — 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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