Position in chronology
MDP 17, 266
About this tablet
A small, badly broken clay tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the Proto-Elamite script — one of the world's earliest writing systems, and one still only partly deciphered. What survives is an account: a heading sign, then two or three entries of goods marked by signs whose meanings remain unknown, each followed by impressed numerals, and a larger number at the end that probably serves as a total. The numbers can be read with confidence even though almost none of the words can, which is the characteristic frustration of Proto-Elamite bookkeeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a heading sign, then lists entries: one commodity marked by a pair of signs, quantity 4; a second entry whose amount is broken away; then, after a gap, a longer entry with several classifier signs and a lost figure; another item recorded as 1 (larger unit) plus 1 (small unit); and a further line, partly lost, counted as 2 and 1 in a capacity notation. At the bottom stands a single large numeral — 1 (N34) — apparently the sum of the account. The identities of the goods themselves are lost to us: the signs have never been securely deciphered, and much of the surface is chipped away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) M005~a — M038~b M374~c : 4 (N01) M288 : [...] [...] M346 M001~b M034~a |M305+M009| M288 : [...] [...] M424 : 1 (N14) 1 (N01) [...] : [...] 2 (N39B) 1 (N24) (total / summary) 1 (N34)
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
M005~a , M038~b M374~c , 4(N01) M288# , [...] [...] M346 M001~b M034~a |M305+M009| M288# , [...] [...] M424# , 1(N14) 1(N01) [...] , [...] 2(N39B) 1(N24) 1(N34)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 266. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008464) — 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.