Position in chronology
MDP 17, 263
About this tablet
A fragment of a proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in one of the world's earliest — and still undeciphered — writing systems. The bookkeeper recorded a series of entries, each pairing signs (probably commodities or the people/institutions receiving them) with counted quantities, including repeated allotments of two small units each. Because proto-Elamite script has never been cracked, we can read the numbers with confidence but not what was being counted — a ledger whose arithmetic survives while its subject matter remains locked away.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a page from an accountant's ledger, torn so that the start of every line is missing. What survives reads roughly: '... one unit. ... [three unknown items or parties], with a fractional measure: two small units. ... same measure: two small units. [Another unknown item], same measure: two small units. ... two of one small unit and one of another.' Three consecutive entries received identical allotments of two units each, suggesting standardized rations or disbursements. Whatever goods were being tallied — grain is the best guess for these measure types — the labels naming them cannot yet be read, and the rest of the document is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, all lines broken at the beginning) [...] — 1 (unit N01) [...] (signs M318~a, M259, M218 — undeciphered) (sign M036 inscribed with 1 N30D) — 2 (units N30C) [...] (sign M036 inscribed with 1 N30D) — 2 (units N30C) (sign M387 — undeciphered) (sign M036 inscribed with 1 N30D) — 2 (units N30C) [...] — 2 (units N39B) and 1 (unit N30C) (remainder of the tablet lost; reverse uninscribed apart from what appears to be an impressed marking)
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(N01)# [...] M318~a M259 M218 |M036+1(N30D)| , 2(N30C)# [...] |M036+1(N30D)| , 2(N30C) M387 |M036+1(N30D)| , 2(N30C) [...] , 2(N39B) 1(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 263. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008461) — 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.