Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 0249
About this tablet
A small clay account tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written about 3100–2900 BCE in the Proto-Elamite script — a writing system that remains largely undeciphered. What can be read with confidence are the numbers: a column of entries measured in a grain-capacity unit (the sign modern scholars call N39B), each attached to a personal or commodity designation, closing with a larger figure of 1(N14) plus 4(N39B) that is almost certainly the total. The reverse was left blank, as is typical for these short single-account records. Even without being able to pronounce a single word of it, we can see the shape of the transaction: several small allotments booked and summed by an administrator in one of the earliest bureaucracies outside Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A ledger sheet, badly chipped. Line by line it books out quantities against named items or people: three measures here, two there, one, then two more, another one — the labels themselves written in signs we cannot yet read. The left-hand edge of several lines is broken away, so some entries survive only as numbers or only as names. The last line carries the biggest figure, one large unit plus four small ones, which is the running total for the account. The back of the tablet was never written on.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) […] , […] M110, M250~ba, M218 — 3(N39B) […] M218(?) — 2(N39B) M068~c, |M296+M296|, M066 […] — […] […] — […] 1(N39B) M254~a, M301(?), |M296+M296|, M057(?) — […] […] M352~n, M218, |M106+M288|, M066 — 2(N39B)(?) […] — […] 1(N39B) M318~a, M066, M320, M390, M285~c […] — […] M063~d, M001~b — 1(N14) 4(N39B) (reverse: uninscribed)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] M110 M250~ba M218 , 3(N39B) [...] M218# , 2(N39B) M068~c |M296+M296| M066 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N39B) M254~a M301# |M296+M296| M057# , [...] [...] M352~n M218 |M106+M288| M066 , 2(N39B)# [...] , [...] 1(N39B) M318~a M066 M320 M390 M285~c [...] , [...] M063~d M001~b , 1(N14) 4(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 0249. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009177) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.