Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 025
About this tablet
This is a small clay economic tablet from the proto-cuneiform Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period, among the very earliest written documents in human history, roughly 3100–2900 BCE. It records quantities — expressed in several different archaic numeral notations — of barley, beer, and flour or groats, alongside references to a reed-measure and fish. Such tablets were part of the bookkeeping of an early institutional household, most likely tracking rations, deliveries, or stores at Jemdet Nasr; the exact transaction and the precise sense of several signs remain unsettled among specialists.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an inventory or receipt tally: it lists several quantities — using different counting notations — of barley, followed by what seems to be a record or bin category measured against a reed-length, along with fish. Below that comes an entry for beer and flour or groats. The tablet breaks off, and after the gap another line repeats the fish and record/reed-measure notation. In short: a compact grain, beer, and fish accounting note from an early Mesopotamian storehouse, its finer details lost to time and an incompletely understood sign system.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) 1. 2(N14) 3(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) — barley [...] 2. — record/tablet(?), reed(-measure), fish 3. — beer, flour/groats (Reverse or continuation) 4. [...] — [...] fish, record/tablet(?), reed(-measure)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(N14) 3(N01) 4(N39~a) 1(N24) , SZE~a [...] , DUB~a GI |KU6~a.1(N02)| , KASZ~c# ZI~a [...] , [...] |KU6~a.1(N02)| DUB~a GI
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 025. 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: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA (P005092) — 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.
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