Position in chronology
MDP 17, 125
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 bureaucratic record: a heading sign followed by seven entries, each pairing one or more signs — perhaps commodities, workers, or institutions — with a tallied quantity. Though we cannot name what was counted, tablets like this show a fully functioning administration in Iran contemporary with the world's earliest writing in Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger. Under a heading whose meaning is lost, a Susa administrator tallied seven line items: three of one thing, two of another, an entry whose amount is broken away, one of a third, four of a fourth, two of a fifth, and one of a sixth. The categories being counted are written in proto-Elamite signs no one can read today, so we know the arithmetic but not the goods. The back of the tablet is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) (Heading:) M157 ... M387 M266~b M261~b1 — 3 (units) M263~a — 2 (units) M387~ef [...] — [amount lost] M387 M260~1 — 1 (unit) M263 — 4 (units) M175+M136 M266~b M261~b1 — 2 (units) M261~b1 — 1 (unit) (reverse uninscribed)
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
M157# , M387 M266~b# M261~b1 , 3(N01) M263~a , 2(N01) M387~ef [...] , [...] M387 M260~1# , 1(N01) M263 , 4(N01) |M175+M136| M266~b M261~b1 , 2(N01)# M261~b1 , 1(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 125. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008323) — 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.