Position in chronology
MDP 06, 300
About this tablet
This is a small proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (mod. Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period (late 4th millennium BCE) — one of the earliest writing systems in the world, still largely undeciphered. It appears to be a columnar list recording commodities or goods alongside small numerical quantities (mostly '1' or '2' units), the kind of everyday bookkeeping used by administrators managing stores, rations, or deliveries in an early city-state. Because proto-Elamite signs cannot yet be read phonetically or semantically, we can identify the structure (entry, quantity) but not the actual commodities or people involved.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a fragmentary accounting tablet, its opening lines lost to damage. Where the text becomes legible, it lists a series of entries — each apparently a good or commodity identified by one or two undeciphered signs — followed by a small quantity: two units, then two units again, one unit, two units, and one unit. A final entry names another sign with no quantity recorded, possibly because it served as a heading, total, or the number is simply broken away. In short: a tally of small quantities of unnamed goods, kept by a scribe at Susa, but the specific items and purpose remain unreadable to us today.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] x [...] , [...] [...] x , 2(N01) [...] M024#? M295~f , 2(N01) [M301] M338 [...] , [...] [...] M157? , 1(N01) x M145~a M371 , 2(N01) M145~a [...] , [...] x M110~b#? M380~b , 1(N01) M332~d , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] x [...] , [...] [...] x , 2(N01) [...] M024#? M295~f , 2(N01) M301 M338 [...] , [...] [...] M157? , 1(N01) x M145~a M371 , 2(N01) M145~a [...] , [...] x M110~b#? M380~b , 1(N01) M332~d , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 300. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008089) — 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.