Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 0216
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 largely undeciphered. What survives is a ledger: a column of sign-groups, each naming a commodity, a person, or an institutional unit, each followed by a number. The numerals are perfectly readable even though the words are not, because proto-Elamite counting used impressed circles and wedges we can still decode: units (N01) and tens (N14). This is the bureaucracy of an early city recording who received what, in a language we cannot yet read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a damaged ledger fragment. The first line is lost. Then: one entry headed by the sign M218, with its figure broken away; another (M296, uncertain) credited with 9; a compound entry beginning M024~1 M262, its number gone; a broken heading with 2; the group M153+M342 with 10; M305 plus a lost sign with 20; a broken entry with 6; M387 combined with M371 with 1; another broken entry with 2; M386 combined with M057 with 10; M153+M342 again with 5; and finally M305+M342, whose figure is lost. The rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [...] , M218 , [...] M296(?) , 9(N01) M024~1 M262 [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01) |M153+M342| , 1(N14) |M305+X| , 2(N14) [...] , 6(N01)(?) M387 × M371(?) , 1(N01) [...] , 2(N01)(?) M386~a × M057~a2 , 1(N14) |M153+M342| , 5(N01) |M305+M342|(?) , [...] (Remainder of the tablet lost; the surviving surface preserves no further legible entries.)
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
[...] , M218 , [...] M296# , 9(N01) M024~1 M262 [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01) |M153+M342| , 1(N14) |M305+X| , 2(N14) [...] , 6(N01)# M387 x M371# , 1(N01) [...] , 2(N01)# M386~a x M057~a2 , 1(N14) |M153+M342| , 5(N01) |M305+M342|#? , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 0216. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009174) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.