Position in chronology
MDP 17, 054
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in one of the world's earliest — and still undeciphered — writing systems. The numbers can be read with confidence, but the signs naming what was counted cannot: the tablet lists several deliveries or allotments of an unknown commodity, each entry pairing a sign-group with a quantity, and appears to close with a grand total. It is a vivid reminder that bookkeeping, not literature, drove the invention of writing, and that some of humanity's first ledgers still keep their secrets.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger fragment. The first entry is lost. Then: one item (written with three signs we can no longer read) — 2 units and 1 small measure; another entry, mostly broken away; a further item — 1 unit; another — 2 small measures and a quarter; then a longer entry whose quantity is lost; a broken entry of 4 units; the same commodity as before — 3 units; and finally what looks like the running total: 12 units plus 3 small measures and a quarter. What exactly was being counted — grain, animals, workers, rations — is unknown, because the proto-Elamite script has never been deciphered. The back of the tablet is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [entry lost] , [quantity lost] M384-g, M056-f, M288 (commodity/entry): 2(N01) 1(N39B) — 2 units, 1 small measure M047(?) [rest of entry lost] , [quantity lost] M288 (commodity/entry): 1(N01) — 1 unit M010-2 (commodity/entry): 2(N39B) 1(N24) — 2 small measures, 1 quarter-measure M059-a, M388, M263, M387-c(?), [illegible sign] , [quantity lost] [entry lost] , 4(N01) — 4 units M010-2 (commodity/entry): 3(N01) — 3 units [final entry, probably the total] , 1(N14) 2(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N24) — 1 ten-unit, 2 units, 3 small measures, 1 quarter-measure (reverse: 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
[...] , M384~g# M056~f M288 , 2(N01) 1(N39B) M047#? [...] , [...] M288 , 1(N01) M010~2 , 2(N39B) 1(N24) M059~a M388 M263 M387~c# x , [...] [...] , 4(N01)# M010~2 , 3(N01)# [...] , 1(N14) 2(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N24)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 054. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008252) — 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.