Position in chronology
MDP 06, 225
About this tablet
This is a small proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (ancient Elam, in modern southwest Iran), dating to the Uruk period — one of the earliest writing systems in the world, still undeciphered as a language. It is a numerical account: a scribe recorded a heading sign followed by several short entries, each pairing one or two commodity or classifier signs with a quantity (mostly the numeral '1', one line reading '2'). Because proto-Elamite script has not been phonetically decoded, we cannot say what commodity or institution is being tallied — only that this is bookkeeping, the same basic accounting impulse that drove the invention of writing itself.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short tally sheet. At the top is some kind of heading mark whose purpose we can't pin down. Below it come a series of entries: a sign or two identifying some commodity or category, followed by a count — one entry for '2 units,' the rest mostly for '1 unit' each. Several lines are broken away and only the quantity survives, or nothing at all. The back of the tablet and its edges show no further legible signs, just wear and breakage. In short: a fragmentary inventory list whose specific contents remain unreadable because the script itself has never been deciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric sign] M066~a ... M346(?) , 2(N01) |M351+1(N14)| M066~a M346 , 1(N01) M305 M388 ... , [......] [......] , 1(N01) M302~t(?) M346 , 1(N01) [......] , [......] 1(N01) (Reverse and remaining edges: uninscribed or too worn to read)
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# , M066~a x M346#? , 2(N01)# |M351+1(N14)| M066~a M346 , 1(N01) M305 M388 x , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M302~t? M346 , 1(N01) [...] , [...] 1(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 225. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008024) — 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.