Position in chronology
MDP 17, 048
About this tablet
An accounting tablet in the proto-Elamite script from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE. The script has never been deciphered, so we cannot name the commodities or people involved, but the structure is unmistakable: a heading followed by six entries, each pairing a sign or sign-group with a quantity, mostly small fractional measures of the kind used for grain or other capacity goods. It is a working document of one of the world's earliest bookkeeping systems — proof that at Susa, as at Uruk, writing was born to track goods, not to record speech.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger. It opens with a damaged heading — perhaps an office or account title — and then lists six line items. Two entries record whole units: one unit against one category sign, two units against another. The remaining entries record small fractional amounts, roughly a half-measure and a smaller fraction each, against different classifier signs, one of them itself damaged and one flanked by an accompanying sign. The final entry, against a doubtfully read sign, totals one mid-size unit plus two small fractions. What exactly was being counted — grain, rations, animals, workers — we cannot say, because the script is undeciphered. The back of the tablet is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Header) [Sign M175+M136 — compound heading, damaged] , M387~a [M036 with 1(N39C) inscribed] , 2(N30C) M261~a1 , 1(N01) M263 , 2(N01) [...] M124 , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M387~ef M248~e , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M036(?) , 1(N24) 1(N30C@b) 1(N30D@b) (The signs are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered; only the numerical notations — one to two full units and several fractional capacity units per entry — can be read with confidence. The reverse is uninscribed.)
Our translation engine — Fable 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
|M175+M136~n|# , M387~a |M036+1(N39C)|# , 2(N30C) M261~a1 , 1(N01) M263 , 2(N01)# [...] M124# , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M387~ef M248~e , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M036? , 1(N24) 1(N30C@b) 1(N30D@b)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 048. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008246) — 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.