Position in chronology
MSVO 3, 22
About this tablet
This is an archaic proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3100–3000 BCE), almost certainly originating at the city of Uruk in southern Iraq. It records quantities — expressed in the distinctive round and wedge impressions of the earliest numerical notation — alongside commodity and personnel designations including a cattle-pen, female workers or animals, supervisory roles, and disbursement entries. The sign GU7 marks rations consumed or distributed, placing this firmly within the institutional bookkeeping of a large temple or palace complex. It is one of the earliest forms of writing ever produced: not literature, but the ledger of an ancient bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records a series of allocations and disbursements from what appears to be a large institutional estate. Entries note quantities of goods or rations assigned to or consumed by various categories of personnel — including a cattle-pen overseen by a 'NIN' (lady/mistress), a group identified by the NUN institution comprising six named individuals, and further entries under supervisory titles. Two lines explicitly mark rations as 'consumed' or 'disbursed' (GU7), with one large quantity — 8(N14) 2(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) — recorded under a distribution marker (BA). Several lines at the top and bottom are broken away and cannot be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 1(N01), [...] female(?) X [...] 1(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24), NIN cattle-pen [...] 3(N14) 2(N39~a), NUN~a 6(N57) person/head [...] 2(N14) 2(N01), PA~a |1(N58).BAD~a| [...] 1(N24), TE NUN~a [...] [...] 1(N24), [...] [...] 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24), AZ 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24), KALAM~b elder/supervisor PA~a , [ration] disbursed [...] 2(N45) 5(N14) 1(N01) 1(N24), [ration] disbursed 8(N14) 2(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24), BA [...] [...], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] 1(N01)# , [...] SAL# X [...] 1(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , NIN TUR3~a [...] 3(N14) 2(N39~a) , NUN~a 6(N57) SAG [...] 2(N14) 2(N01) , PA~a |1(N58).BAD~a| [...] 1(N24)# , TE NUN~a# [...] [...] 1(N24)# , [...] [...] 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , AZ 1(N01) 1(N39~a) 1(N24) , KALAM~b PAP~a PA~a , GU7# [...] 2(N45) 5(N14) 1(N01) 1(N24) , GU7 8(N14) 2(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) , BA [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 3, 22. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Land Berlin, Berlin, Germany (P005333) — 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.