Position in chronology
MDP 17, 193
About this tablet
A broken clay accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written about 3100–2900 BCE in the proto-Elamite script — a writing system that remains largely undeciphered. Each line pairs a commodity or category sign with a quantity: 12, 15, 3, at least 20, 12, 2, 8. Because the word-signs cannot be read phonetically, we know exactly how much was counted but not what it was; the numbers survive, the nouns are lost. The tablet is now in the Louvre.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger fragment, and the arithmetic is all that still speaks. Reading down the surviving lines: one category (marked with the sign M317) is credited with 12 units; the next entry's quantity is broken off; another item, M054, has lost its figure; then 15; then 3 of the commodity written M003~b; then at least 20 more of M054; then 12 again, under a heading combining M066~a(?) and M317; then 2 of M373; and finally 8 of something whose name is destroyed. The reverse carries no readable writing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse [...] M317 — 1(N14) 2(N01) [= 12] x x — [...] M054 — [...] [...] — 1(N14) 5(N01) [= 15] M003~b — 3(N01) [= 3] M054 — 2(N14) [...] [= 20+] [...] M066~a(?) M317 — 1(N14) 2(N01) [= 12] M373 — 2(N01) [...] x(?) — 8(N01) [= 8] (Reverse: uninscribed / surface abraded; no legible signs)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
[...] M317# , 1(N14) 2(N01)# x x , [...] M054# , [...] [...] , 1(N14) 5(N01) M003~b , 3(N01) M054 , 2(N14) [...] [...] M066~a#? M317 , 1(N14) 2(N01)# M373# , 2(N01)# [...] x? , 8(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 193. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008391) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.