Position in chronology
MDP 17, 258
About this tablet
A broken proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa, in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE — roughly the same moment as the earliest writing in southern Mesopotamia, but in a separate and still largely undeciphered script. What survives is a short ledger: a series of entries, each pairing a sign or cluster of signs with a small number, followed by what looks like a summary line with two different numeral types. The sign values cannot be read as language, but the numerals are perfectly clear, and that is the point: this is bookkeeping, an official at Susa tallying commodities or allotments a few units at a time.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The readable part of the tablet is a short list of quantities. Three opening entries each record one unit, against three different sign-groups; a fourth, longer entry — a cluster of five or six signs — has lost its number to a break. A second block records one unit, then two units, then one unit again, using a smaller counting sign. The last surviving line, whose heading is damaged, gives two units in one measure and two in another, and then breaks off. Everything else on the fragment is worn smooth or missing.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse, single column — surface broken at top and along the right edge) [...] M218 — 1(N01) M243~j — 1(N01) M002 — 1(N01) M266~b M066 M352~o M246~b M066 M387[...] — [numeral lost] [...] — 1(N30C) M387~a M036 — 2(N30C) M001 — 1(N30C) [x x] M288 — 2(N01) 2(N39B) [...] (The remainder of the tablet — the lower part of the obverse, the edges and the reverse as photographed — carries no further legible signs; the surfaces are eroded or broken away.)
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
[...] M218 , 1(N01) M243~j , 1(N01) M002 , 1(N01) M266~b M066 M352~o M246~b M066 M387# [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N30C) M387~a# M036# , 2(N30C) M001 , 1(N30C)# x x M288# , 2(N01) 2(N39B)# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 258. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008456) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.