Position in chronology
MDP 17, 450
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet in the proto-Elamite script, written at Susa in southwestern Iran around 3000 BCE. Proto-Elamite remains undeciphered, so we cannot name the goods or people involved, but the structure is clear: each line pairs a group of signs — likely a commodity, person, or institution — with a counted quantity (twos and a ten survive). It is a piece of the earliest bookkeeping tradition of Iran, adapted from the accounting technology invented in neighboring Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger fragment. The readable portion records several entries in a running account: one item (its label now broken) counted at 2 units; a second entry combining five signs — perhaps a commodity plus a personal or institutional designation — also counted at 2 units; then two badly broken entries, one preserving another count of 2; and a final line pairing a two-sign label with a count of 10 units. What was being counted — grain, animals, workers — cannot be determined, since the script has never been deciphered. The beginnings of most lines are damaged or lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(fragmentary proto-Elamite account) ... [two illegible signs] , [quantity lost] [...] , 2 (units) M371 M218 M220 M131+M388 M263 , 2 (units) ... [...] , [quantity lost] [...] , [...] 2 (units) M131+M388 M218 , 10 (units)
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.
Engine notes
read from photo7 uncertain terms ↓
- M371 — Proto-cuneiform sign of uncertain commodity reference; identity inferred from CDLI sign list but not independently verifiable from this photograph.
- M218 — Glossary notes it appears as a subtotal or section-divider; precise administrative function debated. May mark a category boundary rather than a commodity.
- M220 — Proto-cuneiform sign; commodity or category unclear without fuller context or parallel texts.
- |M131+M388| — Compound sign; the '#' in the transliteration indicates uncertain or damaged reading. Function and commodity reference unclear.
- M263 — Reading marked uncertain ('#') in transliteration. Cannot verify from photo.
- 1(N14) — N14 is a higher-order numeral whose precise value depends on the metrological system in use (grain, livestock, vessels, etc.); the exact quantity represented cannot be determined without knowing the commodity.
- 2(N01) — N01 is the basic unit numerical sign; value of '2' here is conventional but the commodity being counted is unknown due to fragmentation.
Reasoning ↓
The photograph shows a broken tablet in multiple fragments (the main inscribed piece in the upper portion, plus three smaller joining or associated sherds, and a plain reverse fragment with museum labels 'Sb 22594' and '450'). The main face preserves several rows of cuneiform-like wedge impressions arranged in columns, consistent with proto-cuneiform administrative layout. The surface is moderately eroded with some pitting and encrustation, making individual sign identification difficult at this resolution. The left edge of the main fragment is broken away, accounting for the lacunae in the transliteration. I can confirm the presence of multiple impressed signs including what appear to be angular and triangular forms consistent with the sign repertoire cited in the transliteration (diagonal wedges, round impressions for numerals), but cannot independently verify specific sign identities such as M371, M218, M220, M131+M388, or M263 from the photograph alone due to resolution and damage. The numerical signs (N01, N14) represented by small round or large round impressions are plausible but cannot be confirmed with certainty. The transliteration is provided by the CDLI project and is taken as the primary scholarly reading; the photo broadly supports the general layout and sign density but cannot resolve individual sign readings.
Generated by Claude Sonnet 4.6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 15, 2026 · 1953 in / 903 out tokens
Transliteration
x x , [...] [...] , 2(N01) M371 M218 M220 |M131+M388|# M263# , 2(N01)# x [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 2(N01) |M131+M388| M218 , 1(N14)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 450. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008648) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.