Position in chronology
MDP 06, 357
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dated to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE, making it among the earliest written documents in human history. The tablet records quantities of commodities or labor allocations under a heading sign of unknown function, using numerical notations typical of early proto-Elamite accounting. Because proto-Elamite script remains largely undeciphered, we can read the numbers and identify the sign sequences but cannot yet translate most signs into words. Tablets like this one represent the very beginning of writing as a record-keeping technology, invented independently at Susa alongside similar experiments at Uruk in southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an accounting record. Under a heading whose meaning is still unknown, it lists a series of entries — each pairing one or more commodity or category signs with a number: 2 of one thing, 3 of another, 2 more, then 1, then 2 in larger units, and so on down through at least ten line entries, ending with what may be a single large-unit total. The specific goods or activities being counted cannot yet be identified, because most of the signs on this tablet have not been deciphered. The numbers, however, are clear.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] |M195+M057| |M305+X|? M264~a , 2 M263 , 3 M387 M376#? , 2 M263# , 1 M002 , 2 [large units] M305 M388 M066 M259 M218 M263~e , 1 M136~c# x M388 M152 M057~a2 M260 , 1 M036#? , 2 M260#? , 1 [+ possible fractional notations] [1 large unit?]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , |M195+M057| |M305+X|? M264~a , 2(N01) M263 , 3(N01) M387 M376#? , 2(N01) M263# , 1(N01) M002 , 2(N30C) M305 M388 M066 M259 M218 M263~e , 1(N01)# M136~c# x M388 M152 M057~a2 M260 , 1(N01) M036#? , 2(N01) M260#? , 1(N01)#? 2(N39B)#? 1(N34)#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 357. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008139) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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.