Position in chronology
MDP 06, 297
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa, dating to the Uruk/proto-Elamite period (late 4th millennium BCE) — one of the earliest known writing systems, still undeciphered. The surviving impressions are numerical notations (small circular and wedge marks recording counted quantities) alongside a string of pictographic signs that likely functioned as commodity or institutional classifiers. Because proto-Elamite script has not yet been fully deciphered, we can identify the structure of an accounting entry — quantities tallied against categories — without being able to say what goods, animals, or rations were actually being recorded.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives of this clay record is a series of tally entries: numbers — three of one unit and one of another, then later two of one unit and one of another — set beside strings of pictographic signs that seem to mark categories of goods or institutions. Most of the tablet is broken away, so we only catch fragments of what was presumably a fuller inventory or accounts list. Because the proto-Elamite writing system used here has never been deciphered, we can recognize that this is a counting record without being able to say what exactly was being counted.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse, broken) [...] , [...] , [...] [...] sign M288 , 3(N01) 1(N39B) [...] [...] , [...] sign M124 sign M386~a(variant) sign M024 sign M371 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 2(N39B) 1(N24) sign M124(damaged) x [...] , [...] [...] , [...] sign |M317+M260|(damaged, uncertain) sign M054 sign M386~a(variant) sign M124 x [...] , [...] [...] , [...]
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
[...] , [...] , [...] [...] M288 , 3(N01) 1(N39B)# [...] [...] , [...] [...] M124 M386~a M024 M371 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 2(N39B) 1(N24) M124# x [...] , [...] [...] , [...] [...] |M317+M260|#? M054 M386~a M124 x [...] , [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 297. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008087) — 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.