Position in chronology
MDP 06, 212
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest writing systems in the world, still largely undeciphered. It records quantities of commodities or livestock distributed across several categories, each identified by a sign-cluster followed by a numerical tally. Tablets like this were produced by a literate bureaucracy managing temple or palace resources at one of the ancient Near East's most important early urban centers. The proto-Elamite script remains unread at the word level, so we can read the numbers and structure but not yet the names of the commodities or people involved.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet opens with what appears to be a heading or document-type marker. It then lists five or six categories of goods or animals — each identified by a cluster of signs we cannot yet fully decipher — with quantities assigned to each: 22 units of one type, 9 of another, 18, 16, and 65 of further categories. A final sign closes the document. Think of it as a spreadsheet: the columns are clear, the numbers are legible, but the labels for what is being counted are still beyond our reading.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157~a] M343 M388 M004 |M218+M101| M371 M346 : 2(N14) 2(N01) [= 22 units] M139 M004 |M218+M101| M371 : 9(N01) [= 9 units] M352~c M346 : 1(N14) 8(N01) [= 18 units] M057~a1 M346 : 1(N14) 6(N01) [= 16 units] M346 : 6(N14) 5(N01) [= 65 units] M139
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157~a , M343 M388 M004 |M218+M101|? M371 M346 , 2(N14) 2(N01) M139# M004 |M218+M101?|# M371 , 9(N01) M352~c M346 , 1(N14) 8(N01)# M057~a1 M346 , 1(N14) 6(N01) M346 , 6(N14) 5(N01) M139 ,
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 212. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008012) — 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.