Position in chronology
MDP 17, 031
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in a script that has never been deciphered. It is a ledger: six or more entries, each pairing a cluster of signs (probably designating commodities, people, or institutions) with a quantity, followed by what appears to be a grand total of 22. Tablets like this show that the earliest writing in Iran, like that in Mesopotamia, was invented for bookkeeping — and this one preserves the arithmetic even though the words themselves are still locked away from us.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an account sheet. A header sign labels the document, and then come the line items: one entry of 2, one of 4, and four more entries of 2 each, each quantity tied to a group of signs that presumably name the goods or the parties involved. At the end the bookkeeper enters what looks like a total of 22 — more than the surviving entries add up to, so some lines have probably been lost to the break — followed by a final figure of 2. Because proto-Elamite script is undeciphered, we can read the numbers but not the words; the back of the tablet is mostly blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) M157 (heading/rubric sign). M207e M131d(?) M248g M388 M004(?) M218+M101(?) M288 — 2 (units, N01). M387l M001 — 4 (units, N01). M102i M388 M332f M004 M338q — 2 (units, N01). M051a M462 M003b — 2 (units, N01). M209d M080d M320 M066a — 2 (units, N01). M153 M145a M371 — 2 (units, N01). (Total line:) M218, M218+M288, M288 — 22 (2 tens, N14, and 2 units, N01). 2 (units, N01). (The reverse is largely uninscribed apart from the final entries; the signs themselves are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered, so no phonetic or semantic translation is possible — only the numerical structure can be read.)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
M157# , M207~e M131~d#? M248~g# M388# M004#? |M218+M101|#? M288 , 2(N01) M387~l# M001 , 4(N01) M102~i M388 M332~f M004 M338~q , 2(N01) M051~a M462 M003~b , 2(N01) M209~d M080~d M320 M066~a , 2(N01) M153 M145~a M371 , 2(N01) M218 |M218+M288| M288 , 2(N14) 2(N01) 2(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008229) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.