Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 04
About this tablet
One of the earliest written documents in human history, this small clay tablet from Uruk (modern Warka, southern Iraq) dates to around 3200–3000 BCE and belongs to the proto-cuneiform administrative tradition. It records quantities of commodities — almost certainly including beer and birds (or poultry-related rations) — tracked by a temple or palace official. The numerical notations use the standard Uruk-period sexagesimal and bisexagesimal systems. Much of the tablet is damaged or broken, but what survives is a snapshot of the world's first bureaucracy managing food and goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records several commodity entries with quantities. The first two lines each note a large quantity (2 units of one denomination plus 1 of another; then 1 plus 1). A third entry gives 9 smaller units associated with a sign likely meaning a type of container or product (SZEN). A fourth entry records 4 units of what appears to be beer, though the rest of that line is broken. A fifth entry, also partially lost, mentions birds alongside an uncertain institutional or categorical marker. The final line is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2(N40) 1(N24~a) , 1(N40) 1(N24~a) , 9(N01) , SZEN~c@t 4(N01) [...] , KASZ~a [...] [...] , [...] MUSZEN AN MUSZ3~a [...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
2(N40) 1(N24~a) , 1(N40) 1(N24~a) , 9(N01) , SZEN~c@t 4(N01) [...] , KASZ~a#? [...] [...] , [...] MUSZEN# AN MUSZ3~a [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 04. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005315) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.