Position in chronology
MS 3004
About this tablet
This is a small proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly the late 4th millennium BCE), among the very earliest writing in human history — centuries before true sentences existed on clay. It records quantities of barley and other commodities or personnel categories against a series of numerical notations, culminating in what looks like a summary line totaling the entries above it. Tablets like this come from the earliest bureaucratic accounting systems of southern Mesopotamian temple or palace institutions, likely from the Umma region, tracking grain allocations, harvests, or stores rather than telling a story.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a bookkeeping note, not a story. It lists four short entries, each a quantity paired with a commodity or category sign: an amount of barley alongside two other terms whose meaning is now lost to us; a second amount tied to something described as 'new' or 'fresh'; and two more single-unit entries with terms that may be titles, categories, or product types. A final line adds up a combined total — 5 plus 2 plus 1 units — again mentioning barley described as fresh, apparently closing out the account with a summary marker. In short: a farm or storehouse tally, keeping count of new-harvest grain and a few other goods or people, whose full meaning is now only partly recoverable.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: (1) 3(N01) units — barley (ŠE~a), MUD, NUN~a (2) 2(N39~a) 1(N24)(?) units — [sign broken], new/fresh (GIBIL) (3) 1(N01) unit — [sign broken], PAP~a(?) (4) 1(N01) unit — [sign broken], DAR~b Reverse: (5) 5(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) units [total] — day/marker (U4), barley (ŠE~a), new/fresh (GIBIL), PAP~a, IB~a
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
3(N01)# , SZE~a# MUD# NUN~a# 2(N39~a)# 1(N24)#? , X GIBIL# 1(N01)# , X PAP~a#? 1(N01) , X DAR~b# 5(N01) 2(N39~a) 1(N24) , U4 SZE~a GIBIL PAP~a# IB~a#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MS 3004. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Schøyen Collection, Oslo, Norway (P006258) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.