Position in chronology
MDP 06, 206
About this tablet
This is a fragmentary proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3200–3000 BCE, among the very earliest written records in human history. It records quantities of commodities or institutional allocations using the archaic pictographic script that preceded true cuneiform, with numerical notations (N39B, a large count unit) alongside sign-clusters representing goods, people, or offices. The reverse face of the tablet appears to carry an impressed or modeled image — possibly a human figure, an animal, or a scene of activity — which was sometimes used on early administrative documents as a kind of visual seal or label. Tablets like this from Susa are closely related to the earliest administrative writing from Uruk in southern Mesopotamia, showing that this accounting technology spread rapidly across a wide region.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records an administrative tally — entries for specific commodities or allocations, each line pairing a category (identified by pictographic signs) with a numerical count. At least two entries survive clearly enough to read: one records a single large unit against a set of goods or personnel, and another does the same. Several lines are too damaged or broken to read. The back of the tablet bears a relief image — a figure, possibly human or animal — whose exact meaning in this context is no longer certain.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLine 1: [Sign M157 — commodity/institutional heading] Line 2: [M124] [M263~1] [M371, damaged] x , [...] Line 3: [...] [M024~1] [M033] [M371] , 1 (large unit of count) Line 4: [M218] [M295~y] [M218] [...] , [...] Line 5: [...] [|M106+M288|] [M066] , 1 (large unit of count) Line 6: [M009, damaged] [M102~d] [M004] x , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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-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.