Position in chronology
MDP 17, 279
About this tablet
A broken accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the proto-Elamite script — a writing system that remains undeciphered to this day. What can be read are the numbers: a column of small counts (ones and threes) beside groups of signs that must name people, commodities or institutions, followed at the bottom by larger measures that look like a running total. It is bookkeeping from the very dawn of writing in Iran: we can see exactly how much was counted, but not yet what was being counted, or by whom.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The surviving entries form a short ledger. Against one damaged heading stand 3 units; the next entry's number is lost; then 2 units, then another 2 against a group of four signs; an entry whose signs are rubbed away; 2 more units; a broken line; then single units twice; 3 units, and 3 again. Near the bottom the tablet shifts to a different, larger measure — 2 and 1 of one series, then 2 again — and closes with what looks like a summation: 9 large units plus 1 and 1 of the smaller ones. The names of the goods and the people behind these figures are written in proto-Elamite signs that nobody today can read, and much of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse 1. [...] M066, M096(?) — 3 (N01) 2. M203~c, M066, M352~o(?), M131~d(?) [...] — [numeral lost] 3. [...] — 2 (N01)(?) 4. M388, M315, M263~1, M297 — 2 (N01) 5. (two illegible signs) [...] — [numeral lost] 6. [...] |M296+M296|, M096 — 2 (N01) 7. M254(?), M352~n, M218(?) [...] — [numeral lost] 8. [...] (illegible sign), M371(?) — 1 (N01) 9. M124, M057, M099, M371 — 1 (N01) 10. [...] M240(?), M096 — 3 (N01)(?) 11. (illegible sign) — 3 (N01) 12. M311, M314 [...] — [numeral lost] 13. [...] — 2 (N39B) 1 (N24) 14. M066 [...] M218, M066 — 2 (N39B) 15. [...] — 9 (N14) 1 (N39B) 1 (N24) (The lower part of the obverse and the whole of the reverse are effectively blank or destroyed; no further text is preserved.)
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
[...] M066 M096# , 3(N01) M203~c M066 M352~o# M131~d# [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01)# M388 M315 M263~1 M297 , 2(N01) x x [...] , [...] [...] |M296+M296| M096 , 2(N01) M254# M352~n M218#? [...] , [...] [...] x M371# , 1(N01) M124 M057 M099 M371 , 1(N01) [...] M240# M096 , 3(N01)# x , 3(N01) M311 M314 [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N39B)# 1(N24) M066 [...] M218 M066 , 2(N39B) [...] , 9(N14)# 1(N39B) 1(N24)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 279. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008477) — 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.