Position in chronology
MDP 06, 220
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 late 4th millennium BCE) — the era when writing itself was just being invented. The tablet is a bookkeeping record: a series of entries, each pairing a sign or sign-compound (probably naming a commodity, person, or institution) with a proto-Elamite numeral notation, followed by a summary total on the reverse. Because proto-Elamite script remains largely undeciphered, we cannot yet say in words what commodity was being counted or who the parties were — only that this was a real transaction being tallied by an accountant roughly 5,000 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is an accounting record. At the top stands a heading sign whose meaning is unknown to us. Below it come three line entries, each combining two sign-groups with a following quantity — essentially 'item X, item Y: this many units' — written three times with slightly different totals (something like 19 units, then 11, then 33, in the tablet's own counting system). A fourth sign stands alone as a subheading, and the record closes with what looks like a grand total: about 42 units of the same commodity marked by the recurring sign M288. Because the proto-Elamite script hasn't been fully deciphered, we can describe the structure of the accounts precisely but can't yet translate what goods, animals, or people are actually being tallied.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 , (heading sign, standing alone) |M195+M038| |M218+M288| M288 , 1(N34) 9(N14) (compound-sign entry) (compound-sign entry) M288 — quantity: 1(N34) 9(N14) |M195+M038|#? |M218+M288| M288 , 1(N34) 1(N45) (compound-sign entry, uncertain reading) (compound-sign entry) M288 — quantity: 1(N34) 1(N45) |M195+M038|#? |M218+M288| M288 , 2(N34) 3(N14) 3(N01) (compound-sign entry, uncertain reading) (compound-sign entry) M288 — quantity: 2(N34) 3(N14) 3(N01) M218 , (sign, standing alone) M288 , 4(N34) 2(N45)# 2(N14) 3(N01) M288 — total quantity: 4(N34) 2(N45, uncertain) 2(N14) 3(N01)
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.
Engine notes
read from photo5 uncertain terms ↓
- M157 — Unidentified proto-cuneiform heading/category sign; its commodity or institutional reference is not yet established with certainty for Susa tablets of this period.
- M195+M038 | M218+M288 | M288 — These are compound proto-cuneiform sign complexes. Their precise referent (a commodity, ration type, or institutional category) remains debated; the sign readings follow CDLI/ATU sign-list conventions.
- N34, N45, N14, N01 — Numerical signs in what may be a bisexagesimal or sexagesimal system. N34 is a large impressed circle (high-order unit), N45 a specific sub-unit sign; exact values depend on which numerical system (S, Š, or other) applies to this commodity category, which is uncertain.
- M218 — Appears as a subtotal or section-divider sign in this context; its precise administrative function is inferred from parallels but not independently confirmed.
- 2(N45)# — The '#' damage marker in the transliteration indicates this reading is uncertain due to surface damage; cannot verify independently from the photograph.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows two views of a small, roughly rectangular clay tablet (museum number Sb 15087, Louvre) in a beige-buff fabric with visible surface cracking and a diagonal break repaired or visible across the middle of the main face. The upper image shows the obverse: I can make out groups of deep, round impressed holes (the numerical signs N01, N14, N34, N45 type impressions in the sexagesimal/bisexagesimal system) and incised or impressed pictographic sign complexes arranged in horizontal registers separated by ruled lines, consistent with the transliteration's layout. A cluster of approximately 7–9 large circular impressions is visible in the left register of the second or third entry, consistent with '9(N14)' in line 2. The lower image appears to be the reverse, which is largely plain or carries only faint traces and a few small impressed dots and short strokes — possibly numerical entries or a blank reverse. Overall preservation is moderate: surface erosion obscures fine wedge detail and makes individual sign identification within the complex sign groups (M195+M038, M218+M288) difficult to confirm independently from the photo alone. The transliteration follows standard CDLI proto-cuneiform conventions for Uruk-period Susa tablets (cf. MDP 06 corpus, Damerow & Englund). The damage marker '#?' on lines 3–4 is consistent with the visible surface erosion in the photo. The total line (M288 with the summed numerical expression 4(N34) 2(N45) 2(N14) 3(N01)) cannot be independently verified from the photo at this resolution.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 14, 2026 · 1854 in / 1070 out tokens
Transliteration
M157 , |M195+M038| |M218+M288| M288 , 1(N34) 9(N14) |M195+M038|#? |M218+M288| M288 , 1(N34) 1(N45) |M195+M038|#? |M218+M288| M288 , 2(N34) 3(N14) 3(N01) M218 , M288 , 4(N34) 2(N45)# 2(N14) 3(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 220. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008019) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.