Position in chronology
MDP 06, 201
About this tablet
One of the very earliest accounting tablets in human history, written at Susa (in modern southwestern Iran) during the late Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. The text records quantities of different commodities or categories of goods — likely animals, foodstuffs, or labor obligations — using the proto-Elamite script, a writing system that has not yet been fully deciphered. Each line pairs a pictographic sign for a commodity type with a numerical notation showing how many units were counted. Tablets like this represent the birth of record-keeping: administrators were using clay and a stylus to track resources before any fully readable writing system existed.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally of goods or commodities, each identified by a category sign and followed by its count. The first legible entry records 17 units of one type. Subsequent lines list smaller quantities — 1, 2, 4 units — of other categories, while one entry logs a mixed total of 1 large unit, 3 standard units, and 1 fractional unit. Another line records 1 large unit plus 9 standard units of a related category, and two further entries note 9 and 2 units respectively. The final line carries category signs but its quantity is either missing or was never entered. The rest of the signs remain undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [sign/commodity label] — M319 + M032: 17 [units] M321~j: 1 [unit] M321: 2 [units] M005: 4 [units] M376: 1 (large unit) + 3 (standard units) + 1 (fractional unit) M310(?) + M376: 1 (large unit) + 9 [units] M149~a: 9 [units] M381(?) + M149~a: 2 [units] M218 + M039~b(?): [quantity lost or unrecorded]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157# , M319 M032 , 1(N14) 7(N01)# M321~j# , 1(N01) M321#? , 2(N01) M005 , 4(N01) M376 , 1(N34) 3(N01) 1(N08) M310#? M376 , 1(N14) 9(N01) M149~a , 9(N01) M381#? M149~a , 2(N01) M218 M039~b? ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 201. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008001) — 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.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.