Position in chronology
MDP 17, 387
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, made around 3100–2900 BCE, when the city used its own undeciphered writing system alongside numerals borrowed from the Mesopotamian tradition. It lists entries of goods or persons (the signs cannot yet be read) each followed by a count, with a compound sign at the top that probably names the institution or the account holder. Only two numerals survive, both '1'; the rest are lost to breakage. It is a fragment of the earliest bookkeeping of ancient Iran.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger from Susa. A heading at the top names the account. Then come seven entries, each a string of signs we cannot yet read, followed by a tally: the first entry's count is lost; the second counts 1; the third is broken; the fourth lists several items but its count is gone; the fifth counts 1; and the last entry's total is lost in the break. The back of the tablet is blank or worn smooth.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: (line 1) [Heading sign:] |M327+M342| (compound sign, no numeral) (line 2) x, M388, M057 [...] — [numeral lost] (line 3) [...] M218 — 1 (unit) (line 4) |M131+M388| [...] M032 [...] — [numeral lost] (line 5) [...] M218(?), M259, M386~a, |M131+M388|, M263 [...] — [numeral lost] (line 6) [...] M099, M371 — 1 (unit) (line 7) M386~a, M240, M096 [...] — [numeral lost] (Reverse: uninscribed / no legible signs)
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
|M327+M342| , x M388 M057# [...] , [...] [...] M218 , 1(N01) |M131+M388| [...] M032 [...] , [...] [...] M218? M259 M386~a |M131+M388| M263 [...] , [...] [...] M099 M371 , 1(N01) M386~a M240 M096# [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 387. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008585) — 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.