Position in chronology
MDP 17, 047
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: each line pairs a sign or sign-cluster — probably naming a commodity, person, or institution — with a numerical notation, opening with what looks like a heading. Tablets like this show that Susa ran a sophisticated bookkeeping system parallel to, but independent of, early Mesopotamian writing — one of the very few original writing systems in human history, and one whose words we still cannot read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an account sheet with six entries under a heading we cannot read. Each entry lists something — a product, a worker category, an office; we do not know which — followed by its quantity: one line records a single small fractional unit, another a different fraction, two lines record one grain-measure each (one with an extra fraction), one records one base unit plus one ten-unit, and the final entry one fraction plus a ten. The quantities are legible; the things being counted are written in signs whose meanings are lost. The back of the tablet is blank except for the tail end of the last entry.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) (Heading) M136~c — [no numeral; rubric or classifier] M305+M332(?) [damaged] ... : 1 (N30C@b) M379~g : 1 (N30D@b) M057 M243~j : 1 (N39B) M386~a M240 M263 M371 [damaged sign] : 1 (N01) 1 (N14) M243~j [damaged] : 1 (N39B) 1 (N24) M002 : 1 (N30C@b) 1 (N14) (The non-numerical signs are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered; only the numerical notations — units of the proto-Elamite counting and capacity systems — can be read with any security. The reverse is uninscribed apart from the end of the final numeral column wrapping around from the obverse.)
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
M136~c , |M305+M332|#? x , 1(N30C@b) M379~g , 1(N30D@b) M057 M243~j , 1(N39B) M386~a M240 M263 M371 x , 1(N01) 1(N14)# M243~j# , 1(N39B) 1(N24) M002 , 1(N30C@b) 1(N14)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 047. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008245) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.