Position in chronology
MDP 06, 315
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite clay tablet from Susa (modern Shush, in southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk/proto-Elamite period, roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the very earliest writing systems in the world, developed alongside but independently of early Sumerian cuneiform. It is an administrative account: a scribe recorded quantities of goods or commodities against a series of sign-groups, using at least two numeral notations (a base counting system and a secondary fractional one). Crucially, proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered — we can read the numbers and see the structure of the accounting, but the specific commodities, institutions, or persons named by the signs (M288, M370, M124, and the rest) cannot yet be translated into words. This tablet is a fragment of that larger, still-unsolved administrative world.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This broken clay tablet is a tally sheet. Line by line, a scribe in ancient Susa listed items — each marked by a sign or combination of signs — followed by a count: mostly small quantities of '1,' with a couple of '2's and a compound count of '1 plus 2' near the bottom. The opening line and one entry midway through are lost to breakage, and the very last line is also partly damaged. Because the proto-Elamite script these signs belong to has never been deciphered, we can see that this is clearly a record of goods being counted and allocated, but we cannot say what the goods actually were, or who was receiving them. What survives is essentially the skeleton of an inventory, with the words themselves still locked away in an unread system.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Column, broken at top) [...] , M329(?): 1(N01) M370, M376, M072: 1(N01) [damaged] |M157+M057|(?), M297, M072: [...] M370 [damaged], M046 [damaged]: 1(N01) M388, M376, M001: 1(N01) |M370~b+M388|: 1(N01) [damaged] M288: 1(N01) 2(N39B) [...]: 1(N01) M124: 1(N01) |M370+M388+M370|: 2(N01) |M370~b+M388|: 2(N01) x: 1(N01)# 2(N39B)# [damaged] (Text ends; reverse and remaining fragments bear no further legible signs beyond the museum inscription 'Sb 15152' and catalogue mark '315')
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
[...] , M329#? , 1(N01) M370 M376 M072 , 1(N01)# |M157+M057|? M297 M072 , [...] M370# M046# , 1(N01) M388 M376 M001 , 1(N01) |M370~b+M388| , 1(N01)# M288 , 1(N01) 2(N39B) [...] , 1(N01) M124 , 1(N01) |M370+M388+M370| , 2(N01) |M370~b+M388| , 2(N01) x , 1(N01)# 2(N39B)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 315. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008104) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.