Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4758
About this tablet
A small clay tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written a little over five thousand years ago in Proto-Elamite — a script that has never been deciphered. Its layout is nonetheless perfectly legible as bookkeeping: a heading, then a series of short entries, each ending in a number, with the counted quantities marked off from the sign-groups that name whatever was being counted. Somebody in an early Susa institution was tracking allocations of goods or persons; we can follow the arithmetic without understanding a single word. The reverse was left blank, and the left edge carries a few extra impressed strokes, probably a running tally.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger sheet. Under a damaged heading, six or seven entries are listed, each naming something with a cluster of signs and then giving its amount: one unit, one unit, then three entries of a smaller measure, then a broken line credited with three units, and a final line with one unit. The back of the tablet was never written on, and a few tally marks were pressed into the left edge. Because Proto-Elamite has never been cracked, we can read the quantities but not the goods or the names — the accounting survives, the language does not.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) [Heading:] |M327+X| — (the compound sign is damaged; its second element is lost) M157 |M175+M288| M124~c M259 M318 M371 M297(?) — 1 (N01) […] M281 M124 M259(?) M101 […] M297(?) — 1 (N01) M193 […] M226~c M218 […] M219 M029~a M242~d M096 M243~ee — 1 (N08A) |M131+M388| M024~1(?) M281 M096 M243~ee — 1 (N08A) M024~a1 M281(?) M096(?) M297(?) — 1 (N08A) […broken…] — 3 (N01) M243~ee(?) — 1 (N01) (Reverse: uninscribed / surface blank as preserved.) (Left edge: a short series of impressed numerical strokes is visible on the tablet; not covered by the transliteration.) Note: Proto-Elamite is an undeciphered script. No phonetic or lexical reading of the non-numerical signs can responsibly be given; they are reproduced here by their conventional catalogue designations (M-numbers). Only the numerical notations (N01, N08A) can be read with confidence, as counts in the Proto-Elamite systems.
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
|M327+X| , M157# |M175+M288|# M124~c# M259# M318# M371# M297#? , 1(N01)# x M281# M124# M259#? M101 x M297#? , 1(N01) M193 x M226~c M218 x M219# M029~a M242~d M096# M243~ee , 1(N08A) |M131+M388| M024~1? M281# M096# M243~ee , 1(N08A) M024~a1 M281#? M096#? M297? , 1(N08A) [...] , 3(N01) M243~ee#? , 1(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4758. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009196) — 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.