Position in chronology
MDP 17, 436
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in proto-Elamite — one of the world's earliest writing systems and one that remains undeciphered. Whoever kept this record was tallying items or deliveries: each line pairs a short string of signs, probably naming a person, commodity, or institution, with a count, mostly one each and once two. Now broken into several fragments, it is everyday bookkeeping from an administration whose language we still cannot read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger with about eleven line-items, though the edges are broken and some quantities are lost. Each entry lists a designation — a string of signs that likely named a person, a commodity, or an office — followed by a tally: most entries count one unit apiece, and one entry near the end counts two. Because proto-Elamite has never been deciphered, we cannot say what was being counted, only that a clerk at Susa was tracking single units of something against a series of named entries. The last line is too damaged to read, and the back of the tablet was left blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse — proto-Elamite account; the script is undeciphered, so entries are rendered by sign designation and numeral) [...] M388 M122 M242 M096 M388 M218 M044 [...] — [quantity lost] [...] M388 M099 ... (three illegible signs) ... M036? ... — 1 [...] M057 M218 M386 M259? M102? M371 — 1 M295? M223 M377 [...] — [quantity lost] [...] ... M131+M388 (compound sign) — 1 M001 M218 — 1 M032 M371 — 1 M377 ... [...] — [quantity lost] [...] ... M218 — 1 M122 M242 M387 ... (two illegible signs) — 2 ... (illegible sign) — [quantity lost] (reverse: uninscribed)
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# M122 M242~ab M096 M388 M218 M044~c [...] , [...] [...] M388 M099 x x x M036#? x , 1(N01) [...] M057~b M218 M386~a M259#? M102~k#? M371 , 1(N01) M295#? M223 M377~e# [...] , [...] [...] x |M131+M388| , 1(N01) M001 M218 , 1(N01) M032 M371 , 1(N01) M377~e x [...] , [...] [...] x M218 , 1(N01) M122 M242~ab M387 x x , 2(N01) x , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 436. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008634) — 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.