Position in chronology
MDP 06, 217
About this tablet
This small clay tablet from Susa (ancient Elam, in modern Iran) belongs to the proto-Elamite writing tradition of the later 4th millennium BCE — a script contemporary with, and related to, the earliest Sumerian cuneiform of Uruk, but one that remains substantially undeciphered by modern scholars. What survives is a short list of entries, each pairing one or two pictographic signs with a notation of counted quantities (the small drilled circles and wedge-shapes visible in the photograph are numerical impressions, not letters). It is almost certainly an administrative record — someone tracking amounts of a commodity, perhaps grain, livestock, or textiles, issued to or received from named parties or categories — but because the proto-Elamite sign system has never been fully decoded, we can see its bookkeeping structure clearly while its actual content stays out of reach.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a bookkeeping tablet, not a letter or story: a scribe in ancient Susa recorded a series of short entries, each naming some item or category (using signs whose meanings are still unknown to modern scholars) followed by a count. The list runs to about seven line-entries, each with its own tally of units, and closes with what looks like a summary line repeating the same heading sign as an early entry, now with a larger total attached. In modern terms, it reads like an inventory ledger — 'item A: quantity such-and-such; item B: quantity such-and-such' — ending in a grand total, but we cannot yet say what goods or people it actually refers to, since the script itself has not been fully translated.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Sign compound) |M218+M218| — [no numeral recorded; heading or classifying entry] M056(variant f) M288 — quantity: 1(N14) + 3(N01) (Sign compound) |M054+M384(variant i)+M054(variant i)| M365 — quantity: 5(N01) M111(variant e) — quantity: 4(N14) + 1(N01) + 3(N39B) M365 — quantity: 1(N14) + 3(N01) M075(variant g) — quantity: 1(N14) + 3(N01) M387(variant l) M348 — quantity: 1(N14) + 3(N01) [Total/closing entry] M056(variant f) M288 — quantity: 1(N45) + 1(N14, sign uncertain) + 3(N39B)
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
|M218+M218| , M056~f M288 , 1(N14) 3(N01) |M054+M384~i+M054~i| M365 , 5(N01) M111~e , 4(N14) 1(N01) 3(N39B) M365 , 1(N14) 3(N01) M075~g , 1(N14) 3(N01) M387~l M348 , 1(N14) 3(N01) M056~f M288 , 1(N45) 1(N14)# 3(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 217. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008016) — 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.