Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 19
About this tablet
A small, heavily damaged proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from late fourth-millennium Uruk — one of the world's earliest cities. It records quantities of commodities and personnel categories, including what appear to be junior officials or dependent workers (SZUBUR, SUKKAL), a food or ration disbursement (GU7), and cereals, probably barley (SZE~a). The tablet belongs to the vast bureaucratic archive that the temple institutions of Uruk kept to track the flow of goods and labor — some of the earliest writing in human history, invented precisely for this kind of accounting. Its fragmentary state means many of the entries cannot be fully recovered, but even the surviving signs give a vivid glimpse of a complex urban economy managing people and staple goods around 3100–3000 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is too damaged to read in full, but what survives records several allocations or disbursements. One entry lists quantities associated with junior workers or servants (SZUBUR) and an official title. Another records ten units linked to NAMESZDA, a junior/small designation, birds or a bird-related category (MUSZEN), and BU~a. Further entries note allocations to a SUKKAL (a high official or vizier category) and to a PAP~a (perhaps an elder or supervisor) connected with potters or a vessel-making category (BAHAR2~b). A consumption or ration entry (GU7) follows, and a subtotal line records quantities of what is likely barley (SZE~a). The rest of the tablet is lost or too broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 2(N14)# [...] , [...] [...] 2(N01)# 2(N39~a) , USZ~a |1(N57).SZUBUR| 5(N14)# , NAMESZDA TUR MUSZEN BU~a# TUR# [...] 3(N14)# [...] , [...] 4(N14)# 2(N01)# [...] , LAM~b# X 1(N14) , HAL ME~a SUKKAL 1(N14) , PAP~a BAHAR2~b , [...] GU7 3(N34)# 1(N01) 1(N39~a) , SZE~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)# [...] , [...] [...] 2(N01)# 2(N39~a) , USZ~a |1(N57).SZUBUR| 5(N14)# , NAMESZDA TUR MUSZEN BU~a# TUR# [...] 3(N14)# [...] , [...] 4(N14)# 2(N01)# [...] , LAM~b# X 1(N14) , HAL ME~a SUKKAL 1(N14) , PAP~a BAHAR2~b , [...] GU7 3(N34)# 1(N01) 1(N39~a) , SZE~a [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 19. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005330) — 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.