Position in chronology
MDP 17, 139
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in one of the world's earliest — and still undeciphered — writing systems. It is an economic account: a header sign classifies the record, then successive entries pair sign-groups (probably names of people, institutions, or commodities) with counted quantities (2, 10, and 31 units survive). Because proto-Elamite word-signs remain unread, we can follow the bookkeeping arithmetic but not identify what was being counted or for whom.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger page from ancient Susa. It opens with a category label, then lists entries: one party or commodity credited with 2 units (the number is damaged), another with 10, and a third — its label now illegible — with 31. Two further entries survive as labels only, their quantities broken away, and the final line is lost entirely. We can read the numbers and follow the accounting structure, but the words themselves belong to a script no one has yet deciphered, so who received what remains unknown.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Header/classifier:) M327~p. M001 M139: 2(N01) [= 2 units]#? [...] [...] M099 M102~k2: 1(N14) [= 10 units]. M115~b M146 [...]: [quantity lost]. [...] M089# M250~m M377 M347 M371 [...]: [quantity lost]. (illegible sign): 3(N14) 1(N01) [= 31 units]. M057~b1 M057~a2: [quantity lost]. [...]: [...] (remainder broken).
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
M327~p , M001 M139 , 2(N01)#? [...] [...] M099 M102~k2 , 1(N14) M115~b M146 [...] , [...] [...] M089# M250~m M377 M347 M371 [...] , [...] x , 3(N14) 1(N01) M057~b1 M057~a2 , [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 139. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008337) — 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.