Position in chronology
MDP 17, 246
About this tablet
A small clay account tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in Proto-Elamite — a script that remains largely undeciphered. What survives is a column of entries, each pairing one or two commodity or personal designations with a number: mostly single units, once ten units, once two units plus a small fractional measure. Even without knowing the words, the structure is unmistakable: an accountant tallying issues or receipts, item by item, in the earliest bureaucratic writing of Iran. 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. The first entry heads the list with ten units of something; the following lines record one unit each of a series of different items or recipients, with one entry of two units plus a fraction, and another of two units. Several signs are damaged, and one line's number is lost entirely. The last preserved line records one more unit against a two- or three-sign designation. The back of the tablet carries no writing that can still be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. M157(?) M054, (broken sign) — 1(N14) 2. M218(?) — 1(N01)(?) 3. M096 — 2(N01) 1(N24) 4. M218 — 1(N01) 5. M066 M352~n(?) — [ ... ] 6. M218 — 1(N01) 7. M058 M297 M066 — 1(N01) 8. (broken sign) M223~b M218 — 1(N01) 9. M099 M371 — 1(N01) 10. M352~n M301 M057~a — 1(N01) 11. M057 M058 M057 — 2(N01) 12. [ ... ] — [ ... ] 13. M288(?) M242~d M097~h(?) — 1(N01)(?) (Reverse: surface preserved but effectively uninscribed/erased; 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
M157#? M054 x , 1(N14) M218# , 1(N01)# M096 , 2(N01) 1(N24) M218 , 1(N01) M066 M352~n# , [...] M218 , 1(N01) M058 M297 M066 , 1(N01) x M223~b M218 , 1(N01) M099 M371 , 1(N01) M352~n M301 M057~a , 1(N01) M057 M058 M057 , 2(N01) [...] , [...] M288# M242~d M097~h#? , 1(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 246. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008444) — 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.