Position in chronology
MDP 17, 148
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. The scribe lists quantities of some commodity — the numbers are perfectly legible, but the signs naming what was counted remain unknown. Strikingly, the reverse carries totals that check out arithmetically against the entries on the front (42 + 30 = 72, 3 + 9 = 12), proof that these earliest Iranian bureaucrats were doing real bookkeeping. It is a receipt or ledger whose figures we can audit five thousand years later, even though we cannot name the goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger. The account opens under a heading we can no longer read, then lists entries: one category counted at 42, another item at 1, another at 5, another at 3, a further category at 30, then 9 more of one item and about 1 and a half of another. On the back the clerk added everything up by category: 72 of the main commodity, 1 of the second, 6 and a fraction of the third, 12 of the fourth — and the sums match the entries on the front exactly. What was being counted — grain, animals, workers, jars — is written in signs no one today can decipher; only the arithmetic survives intact.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Header) |M377+M320+M377| (compound sign, no numeral — likely a heading or account owner). Obverse (individual entries): M388 M218 M352~n M318~c M371 M288~g — 4(N14) 2(N01) (= 42 units) [...] M032 — 1(N01) (= 1 unit) M376 — 5(N01) (= 5 units) M367 — 3(N01) (= 3 units) M218(?) M242 M096 — 3(N14) (= 30 units) M367 — 9(N01) (= 9 units) M376 — [1(N01)] 1(N08A) (= 1 and a fraction) Reverse (totals): M288~g — 7(N14) 2(N01) (= 72 units) M032 — 1(N01) (= 1 unit) M376 — 6(N01) 1(N08A) (= 6 and a fraction) M367 — 1(N14) 2(N01) (= 12 units) (The commodity signs are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered; only the numerals can be read with assurance.)
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
|M377+M320+M377| , M388 M218 M352~n# M318~c M371 M288~g , 4(N14) 2(N01) [...] M032# , 1(N01) M376 , 5(N01) M367# , 3(N01)# M218#? M242# M096 , 3(N14) M367 , 9(N01) M376 , [1(N01)] 1(N08A)# M288~g , 7(N14) 2(N01) M032 , 1(N01) M376 , 6(N01) 1(N08A) M367 , 1(N14) 2(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 148. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008346) — 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.