Position in chronology
MDP 17, 076
About this tablet
An administrative account from Susa, in southwestern Iran, written around 3100 BCE in the proto-Elamite tradition — one of the world's earliest and still-undeciphered writing systems. A bookkeeper recorded eight or nine entries, each pairing a short sign-sequence (probably naming a person, office, or commodity) with a quantity, several of them fractional measures likely of grain or another staple. Because the script has never been cracked, we can read the numbers with fair confidence but not the words: this is accounting we can count but not fully understand.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger page. A damaged heading opens the account, and then come the line items: one entity receives (or owes) 1 full unit; another, 2 full units plus 2 small measures; a third, 2 of a smaller fractional measure; a fourth, 2 small measures and possibly 1 tiny one; a fifth, 2 full units; a sixth, again 2 small measures and perhaps 1 tiny one; a seventh, 2 small measures; and a final entry totals 2 small measures, 1 further sub-measure, and 2 of the smallest unit. Who or what each entry names is written in a script no one today can read; only the arithmetic survives intact.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Header, damaged:) M103[?] — (no numeral preserved) (Entry 1:) M380 M387 M261a — 1(N01) (Entry 2:) M260 (variant 1, damaged) — 2(N01) 2(N39B) (Entry 3:) M387ef M248a[?] M010(6) — 2(N30C) (Entry 4:) M036+1(N39C) M297 — 2(N39B) 1(N24b)[?] (Entry 5:) M387 M346 — 2(N01) (Entry 6:) M036 — 2(N39B) 1(N24b)[?] (Entry 7:) M246s — 2(N39B) (Entry 8:) M036+1(N39B) (plus one unread sign) — 2(N39B) 1(N39Bb) 2(N30C) Note: the sign sequences (M-numbers) belong to the undeciphered proto-Elamite/proto-cuneiform script and cannot be translated as words; the numerals belong to the capacity/counting notations (N01 = whole units; N39B, N30C, N24b = fractional measures) and are reproduced exactly as written.
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
M103#? , M380 M387 M261~a , 1(N01) M260~1# , 2(N01) 2(N39B) M387~ef M248~a#? M010~6 , 2(N30C) |M036+1(N39C)| M297 , 2(N39B) 1(N24@b)#? M387 M346# , 2(N01) M036 , 2(N39B) 1(N24@b)#? M246~s , 2(N39B) |M036+1(N39B)| x , 2(N39B) 1(N39B@b) 2(N30C)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 076. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008274) — 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.