Position in chronology
MDP 06, 202
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (in modern southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk/proto-Elamite period, roughly the late 4th millennium BCE — among the very earliest writing systems in the world, still largely undeciphered. It records a series of entries, each pairing one or two sign-groups (probably commodities, categories, or account headings) with a numerical notation, ending in a summary total. Because proto-Elamite script has not yet been phonetically deciphered, scholars can identify the structure — headings, quantities, a grand total — without being able to read what commodity or category is actually being counted.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet. Someone listed several categories, each written with one or two special marks, and set a quantity next to each: one entry with 3 units, another with 3 of one measure plus 2 of another, then 2 units, 2 units, 2 of one measure plus 2 of another, 2 units, 1 unit, and a damaged final entry with a partial count. At the bottom the scribe wrote a single total figure summing up the whole account. We can see the bookkeeping clearly — headings, quantities, subtotal, grand total — but we still cannot read what goods or people the marks themselves refer to, since the script itself remains largely undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/classifier:] 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) Total: 1(N34)
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
|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-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.