Position in chronology
MSVO 1, 172
About this tablet
This is a small administrative tablet from the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE), found at Jemdet Nasr, listing quantities of commodities — fruit, grain in storage containers, and other goods whose exact names are lost to us — tied to institutions or officials and to the city of Uruk itself. It belongs to the earliest phase of writing anywhere in the world, when scribes used pictographic signs and numeral notations to track the flow of goods through temple or palace storerooms. Much of the text is broken, so the full transaction it once recorded cannot be reconstructed, but the surviving entries show barley being measured into named containers and small quantities of other commodities being counted out.
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. The first few lines are almost entirely lost, though one mentions a jar-shaped container and a term that later scribal tradition reads as a receipt notation. Further down, the record becomes clearer: five units of apples (or a related fruit), one unit stored in a certain type of container, one unit tied to an 'assembly' or institution, and an entry naming an official or storehouse category together with a place or remainder-allocation. Another line records one container-load of barley, followed by a notation that may mean the goods were 'given' or 'deposited,' though this reading is not certain. The tablet closes with three units of an unidentified administrative category, associated with the city of Uruk. The overall transaction — what was received, by whom, and for what purpose — cannot be fully recovered because of the breaks at the start and elsewhere in the text.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. [...], |DUG~cx1(N57)| (a vessel-sign, quantity 1(N57)) 2. [...], ŠU2 3. [...], [...] 4. [...], [...] X 5. 5(N01), ḪAŠḪUR (apple/fruit-tree — 5 units) 6. 1(N01), |GA2~a1×X| (1 unit of a GA2-container, compounded with sign X) 7. 1(N01), UKKIN~a (1 unit — 'assembly'/institution) 8. NUN~a TAK4~a KI (NUN — TAK4 — KI: a princely/institutional designation, a 'remainder'-allocation, at/from a place) 9. 1(N01), |GA2~a1׊A| ŠE~a (1 unit of a GA2׊A-container of barley) 10. NI~a.RU (given/deposited — reading tentative) 11. 3(N57) MUŠ3~a (3(N57) units of MUŠ3, an unclear administrative referent) 12. UNUG~a (Uruk)
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
[...] , |DUG~cx1(N57)|# [...] , SZU2 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] X 5(N01) , HASZHUR# 1(N01) , |GA2~a1xX|# 1(N01) , UKKIN~a# , NUN~a# TAK4~a# KI# 1(N01) , |GA2~a1xSZA| SZE~a , |NI~a.RU| , 3(N57) MUSZ3~a , UNUG~a
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Uruk III (ca. 3200-3000 BC)) — MSVO 1, 172. 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 (P005239) — 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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