Position in chronology
MDP 06, 311
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa, in southwestern Iran, dating to the Uruk period (late 4th millennium BCE) — one of the earliest bureaucratic writing systems in the world, still largely undeciphered. It appears to be a tally of goods or commodities, organized as a sequence of sign-groups (likely commodity names or classifiers) each followed by a numerical notation using the archaic counting system (N01, N14, N24, N39B). We cannot read the actual words — the script predates decipherment — but the structure (repeated headers plus quantities, ending in a larger summary line) is unmistakably an accounting record, probably tracking rations, livestock, or stored goods under an official's authority.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a bookkeeping tablet, broken into several pieces, recording a list of goods or categories each tallied with a count. The opening lines are lost. What survives reads roughly like an inventory: one entry gets a count of 1, another entry (a compound sign) gets 1, a sign called 'M054' gets 1, then a very common sign (M288) is counted with 1 plus two smaller unit-marks. Several following lines list groups of two or more signs together — probably compound commodity names — but their number values are missing because the tablet is broken there. A couple of entries carry counts of 2. Near the end, a doubled sign appears with no number, possibly a heading rather than a counted item, and the final line — clearly a summary total — reads 3 large units, 5 of the standard unit, and 4 small sub-units. None of the actual words can be translated yet, since this writing system (proto-Elamite) hasn't been deciphered; only the accounting structure and numerals are legible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N01) |M370+M072+M370| , 1(N01) M054 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) M124 M370 M024~a1 M371 , [...] M332~d? M024? M371 M376 M370 x , [...] x , 2(N01) |M370+M046+M370|#? [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N39B) 1(N24) M057~b , [...] M288 , 1(N01) M218 M295~e M054 , [...] [...] M288#? , 3(N14) 5(N01) 4(N39B)
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
[...] , [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N01) |M370+M072+M370| , 1(N01) M054 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) M124 M370 M024~a1 M371 , [...] M332~d? M024? M371 M376 M370 x , [...] x , 2(N01) |M370+M046+M370|#? [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N39B) 1(N24) M057~b , [...] M288 , 1(N01) M218 M295~e M054 , [...] [...] M288#? , 3(N14) 5(N01) 4(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 311. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008100) — 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.