Position in chronology
MDP 06, 206
About this tablet
This is a small proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa, in what is today southwestern Iran, dating to the Uruk period (roughly the later 4th millennium BCE) — one of the very earliest phases of writing anywhere in the world. The proto-Elamite script it uses has never been deciphered, so we can identify individual signs and numerals but cannot translate what commodity, animal, or category is actually being counted. The reverse bears the rolled impression of a cylinder seal showing animals in two registers, the mark of the official or institution who authorized whatever transaction this tablet recorded. It is a tangible fragment of a bureaucratic system whose language is, quite literally, lost — bookkeeping we can see but not yet read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet from an administrative office in ancient Susa, roughly five thousand years ago. It lists several entries, each opening with two or three category signs — probably naming a commodity, an official, or a place — followed by a numeral. Two of the surviving entries total one unit each, measured in a unit scholars label 'N39B'; the amounts on the other entries are lost to breaks in the clay. The heading sign at the top of the tablet may identify what kind of document this is, but its meaning is not known. The back of the tablet has no writing — instead it carries the rolled impression of an official's cylinder seal, decorated with rows of animals, which served as a kind of signature guaranteeing the record. Because the script itself, proto-Elamite, has never been fully deciphered, much of what this tablet actually records remains a mystery.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) Line 1: [sign] M157, (heading / rubric sign, isolated) Line 2: M124 — M263 (variant 1) — M371 (damaged) — [sign], [break: quantity lost] Line 3: [break] — M024 (variant 1) — M033 (damaged) — M371, 1 (numeral: N39B) Line 4: M218 — M295 (variant y) — M218 — [break], [break: quantity lost] Line 5: [break] — M106+M288 (compound sign) — M066, 1 (numeral: N39B) Line 6: M009 (damaged) — M102 (variant d) — M004 — [sign], [break: quantity lost] (Reverse: no inscribed signs — bears the impression of a cylinder seal showing two registers of striding animals, likely part of the sealing that validated the document.)
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
M157 , M124 M263~1 M371# x , [...] [...] M024~1 M033 M371 , 1(N39B) M218 M295~y M218 [...] , [...] [...] |M106+M288| M066 , 1(N39B) M009# M102~d M004 x , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 206. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008006) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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.