Position in chronology
MDP 17, 080
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3000 BCE in proto-Elamite — a script that has never been deciphered. Although we cannot read what commodity is being counted, the structure is clear: a heading, then a dozen entries pairing category signs with quantities, closed by a summed total on the reverse-side line. It is a bookkeeper's record from one of the world's earliest literate administrations, and every tablet like this is a potential key to cracking the script.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger. It opens with a heading naming the account, then lists entries: one small measure against one pair of signs; a damaged entry; three units against a lost heading; one unit for a four-sign entry; more damaged lines with two units and two fractional measures; then a run of single-unit entries, each tagged with the recurring category sign M263. The document closes with a grand total of one large unit. The commodity itself — grain, animals, labor, we cannot say — is hidden behind signs no one can yet read, and several lines are broken away entirely.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) (Heading:) M305+M342 (compound sign, no numeral — rubric/heading) M320 M243: 1 N39B (small capacity/fractional unit) M024 M033 M376(?) [...] : [quantity lost] [...] : [...] 3 N01 (units) M124 M146 M218 M263: 1 N01 M131 [...] : [quantity lost] [...] : [...] 2 N01 M320 M243: 2 N30C (fractional units) M032 M376(?) [...] : [quantity lost] M305 M263: 1 N01 M382(?) M263: 1(?) N01 [...] M263: 1 N01 (Total:) 1 N34 (one large unit, i.e. the grand total of the entries)
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
|M305+M342|# , M320 M243~j , 1(N39B@c) M024 M033# M376#? [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01) M124 M146 M218 M263~b1 , 1(N01) M131~g [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 2(N01) M320 M243~j , 2(N30C@c) M032 M376#? [...] , [...] M305 M263~b1 , 1(N01)# M382#? M263~a# , 1(N01)#? [...] M263~b1 , 1(N01) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 080. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008278) — 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.