Position in chronology
MDP 17, 317
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, around 3100–2900 BCE, in a script that has never been deciphered. It lists several entries — each a cluster of signs standing for a commodity, person, or institution — followed by numbers in the proto-Elamite counting systems. We cannot read what was being counted, but the tablet shows that Susa was running a written bookkeeping system at the same time as the first cities of Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger. The first line names something with a string of signs whose meaning is lost, and its quantity is broken away. Then an item labeled with the sign M010 is counted as 1 plus 1 of a smaller unit. The next entry (M103) has its number missing. M010 appears again with 2 plus 1 of another unit. An item written with M387 and probably M011 has no surviving total. A final entry, whose label is lost, is counted as 1 and 1. The back of the tablet is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: [...] M388 M009 M318~a1 M371 M036 , [...] M010~6 , 1(N01) 1(N30C) M103 [...] , [...] M010~6 , 2(N01) 1(N39B) M387 M011? , [...] [...] , 1(N39B) 1(N30C) (Rendered as an account:) [Heading/entry:] signs M388, M009, M318~a1, M371, M036 — [quantity lost] Entry M010~6: 1 (N01) and 1 (N30C) Entry M103 [...]: [quantity lost] Entry M010~6: 2 (N01) and 1 (N39B) Entry M387 M011?: [quantity lost] [Entry lost]: 1 (N39B) and 1 (N30C) Reverse: uninscribed apart from an incised mark and a modern ink number (317).
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
[...] M388 M009# M318~a1 M371 M036# , [...] M010~6 , 1(N01) 1(N30C) M103 [...] , [...] M010~6# , 2(N01) 1(N39B) M387 M011? , [...] [...] , 1(N39B) 1(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 317. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008515) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-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.