MSVO 1, 087

~3100 BCE·Uruk Period·P005154

About this tablet

This is a small administrative tablet from the proto-cuneiform period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), found at Jemdet Nasr, one of the very earliest phases of writing anywhere in the world. It is badly broken into several fragments, but what survives is a tally of goods — beer, reed products, and other commodities whose signs cannot yet be securely translated — recorded with numerical notations in the archaic counting systems used before true sentences existed. Tablets like this are essentially bookkeeping fragments from an early Mesopotamian institution, not narrative texts, and they matter because they document the very first steps of accounting and writing together.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This is a fragmentary inventory or receipt tablet. What survives lists quantities of goods next to commodity signs — apparently including a measuring-reed unit, some beer, and other items whose meaning is now lost to damage and to the limits of decipherment for this very early stage of writing. Several rows give bare number sequences without surviving commodity labels, and a few entries mention reed-mat products, an unidentified sign, and possibly a notation meaning 'given' or 'deposited.' Much of the tablet's context — who is receiving these goods, from whom, and why — is missing because most of the surface is broken away.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

(Column/line 1) [...], [...] GI (reed/length-unit) — beer(?) [KASZ], the sign U4 combined with 1(N57) [...] (Line 2) 1(N60) 2(N52) [...], (Line 3) 2(N14) 6(N01) [...], [...] (illegible sign) (Line 4) [...], (illegible sign) [...] (Line 5) , GI (reed/length-unit) [...] (Line 6) 1(N47) 5(N20) 3(N05), (Line 7) 5(N18) 2(N03), (Line 8) 2(N01)(?) [...], [...] (Line 9) 1(N14) 2(N01), ME (sign of uncertain value) (Line 10) [...] 4(N01), ZATU753 (unidentified commodity sign) (Line 11) [...], KID (reed-mat product) [...] (Line 12) , [...] NI.RU(?) [...]

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

[...] , [...] GI# KASZ~b |U4x1(N57)| [...]
1(N60) 2(N52) [...] ,
2(N14) 6(N01)# [...] , [...] X
[...] , X [...]
, GI# [...]
1(N47) 5(N20) 3(N05) ,
5(N18) 2(N03) ,
2(N01)#? [...] , [...]
1(N14) 2(N01) , ME~a
[...] 4(N01) , ZATU753
[...] , KID~b [...]
, [...] |NI~a.RU|# [...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 087. 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: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK (P005154) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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