Position in chronology
MDP 17, 143
About this tablet
A badly shattered accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100 BCE in the proto-Elamite/late Uruk tradition — one of the world's earliest bookkeeping systems, older than any readable language. Only strings of numerals survive: circular punches and wedge impressions recording quantities, most likely measures of grain, in a mix of whole units and fractions. The names of the people or institutions involved, and the goods being counted, are lost in the breaks. Tablets like this show that writing began not with stories but with accountants.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from a broken ledger. What remains are several lines of pure numbers: one entry lists a series of small fractional measures plus three larger units; another lists four fractional units, then several more small fractions; a third records two units of the basic measure; and a final line — perhaps a subtotal — notes one large unit and one medium unit. Whatever was being counted, and for whom, stood in the parts of the tablet that are now missing. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse, fragmentary — accounting entries) [...] , [...] , [...] 1(N30c) 1(N30d) 1(N39c)? 3(N14) — [an entry of] 1 N30c-unit, 1 N30d-unit, 1 N39c-unit(?), and 3 N14-units [...] , [...] 4(N39b) 1(N24) 1(N30c) 1(N30d) 1(N39c)? — [an entry of] 4 N39b-units, 1 N24-unit, 1 N30c-unit, 1 N30d-unit, and 1 N39c-unit(?) [...] , [...] 2(N01) [...] — [an entry of] 2 N01-units [...] 1(N34) 1(N14) [...] — [a total or entry of] 1 N34-unit and 1 N14-unit [...] (The owners of the entries and any commodity signs are lost in the breaks.)
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
[...] , [...] , [...] 1(N30C) 1(N30D) 1(N39C)? 3(N14) [...] , [...] 4(N39B)# 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N30D) 1(N39C)? [...] , [...] 2(N01)# [...] 1(N34) 1(N14) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 143. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008341) — 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.