Position in chronology
MDP 06, 202
About this tablet
One of the oldest administrative tablets in the world, written at Susa (in modern Iran) during the late Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE — before writing had even fully crystallized into a stable system. The tablet records quantities of commodities, probably livestock or agricultural goods, assigned to different categories or officials, using a combination of proto-Elamite pictographic signs and numerical notations. The numeric system visible here — circular impressions and wedge-shaped marks in different sizes — is a well-known Uruk-period accounting notation: different sign shapes represent different orders of magnitude. Tablets like this one are among the very first attempts by human societies to keep written economic records, and Susa was one of the earliest cities to independently adopt this bookkeeping technology.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is an accounting record. It lists several categories of goods or animals — each identified by a pictographic sign — alongside quantities expressed in a mixed numerical notation. The first entry is a heading or category sign. Subsequent lines give: one item in a quantity of 3 (small units); another item whose quantity is broken away; a third item totaling 3 large units plus 2 medium units; further items in quantities of 2 small units each; another at 2 large plus 2 medium units; one more at 2 small units; one at 1 large unit; and a damaged final entry with 1 intermediate unit and 1 medium unit. A single large-unit mark closes the tablet. The rest is too damaged or broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine|M175+M288| , |M305+M111~c| M264~a , 3(N01) M263~b# [...] , [...] |M002+M379| , 3(N39B) 2(N30C) |M305+M324~c| M264~a# , 2(N01) M263~b , 2(N01) M297~b , 2(N39B) 2(N30C) M054#? M264~a , 2(N01) M297 , 1(N39B) [... M297] , [n] 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N34)#
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
|M175+M288| , |M305+M111~c| M264~a , 3(N01) M263~b# [...] , [...] |M002+M379| , 3(N39B) 2(N30C) |M305+M324~c| M264~a# , 2(N01) M263~b , 2(N01) M297~b , 2(N39B) 2(N30C) M054#? M264~a , 2(N01) M297 , 1(N39B) [... M297] , [n] 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N34)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 202. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008002) — 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.