Position in chronology
MDP 06, 337
About this tablet
A fragmentary Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the Uruk period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE), now held in the Louvre. It records quantities of commodities or institutional categories using a numerical notation system that preceded true writing — the entries consist of sign clusters followed by tally numbers, in the standard format of Proto-Elamite accounting. Like nearly all Proto-Elamite tablets, the underlying language and the precise meanings of most signs remain undeciphered, so we can read the numbers and the structure of entries but not the commodities or persons named. It is one of thousands of similar administrative records excavated at Susa, reflecting a sophisticated bureaucratic economy managing the redistribution of goods across one of the ancient world's earliest urban centers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is an account listing several categories of goods or resources, each followed by a count. One entry records 24 units of something designated by a five-sign cluster; another entry has 50 units of an unidentified category; several single-unit entries of a recurring category appear throughout. Some entries survive only partially, and several lines are too broken to read. The tablet is essentially a ledger page — a bureaucrat's tally of quantities under different headings — but because Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, we cannot say what the goods were or who was responsible for them.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 2 M153 M096 M096 M066 M348 , 22 + 2 M346 , 1 [...] , 50 M262 M352~n M320 , 2 M346 , 1 M305 M388 M128 [x] , [...] [...] , 4 M346 , 1 M254~a M263 , [...] [...] , [...] 2 M080~b M001~b , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 2(N01) M153 M096 M096# M066 M348 , 2(N14) 2(N01) M346 , 1(N01) [...] , 5(N14) M262 M352~n M320 , 2(N01) M346 , 1(N01) M305 M388 M128 x , [...] [...] , 4(N01)# M346 , 1(N01) M254~a M263 , [...] [...] , [...] 2(N01)# M080~b M001~b , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 337. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008123) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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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.