Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 08
About this tablet
A small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), probably from the city of Uruk in southern Iraq. It records numerical entries paired with signs indicating commodities, containers, or categories of workers — the kind of terse bookkeeping that characterized the world's earliest writing. Several of the sign combinations (SAL, 'woman/female'; NAMESZDA, a possible occupational title; DUG~a, a vessel type) suggest this may track rations, allocations, or counts of goods distributed to or associated with specific worker categories. The tablet is fragmentary and its surface is damaged, making a full reading impossible, but it represents the very earliest phase of written record-keeping in human history.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The opening lines are broken and unreadable. What survives records: a quantity marked by 2 large numerical signs, associated with a jar or vessel; a count of 41 units linked to a sign-group that may indicate a color or quality grade, an occupational category (NAMESZDA), and a garden or field notation; then bare numbers — 3 units, then 11 units — with no commodity specified; then 2 units associated with a female worker (or female category), something 'mixed,' and a mouth/ration sign; and finally 21 units connected with a MUD qualifier and a NUN-type institutional or locative sign, with the rest broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] 2(N14) , DUG~a [vessel/jar] 4(N03) 1(N40) , SI4~f NAMESZDA SAR~a 3(N03) , 1(N03) 1(N40) , 2(N03) , SAL HI KA~a 2(N03) 1(N40) , MUD NUN~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(N14) , DUG~a#? 4(N03) 1(N40) , SI4~f# NAMESZDA# SAR~a#? 3(N03) , 1(N03) 1(N40) , 2(N03) , SAL HI KA~a 2(N03) 1(N40) , MUD NUN~a#? [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 08. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P005319) — 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.