Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4767
About this tablet
A small clay account tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written in the still-undeciphered proto-Elamite script around 3100–2900 BCE. Each line pairs a sign or cluster of signs — a commodity, a person, or an institution — with a number written in one of the specialized proto-Elamite counting systems, so the tablet is plainly a ledger of receipts or disbursements. Because the script's word-signs have never been securely read, we can follow the arithmetic but not the vocabulary: we know something was counted and measured, but not what. The fragment is broken on the left, so the beginnings of most entries are gone, and the reverse is blank.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger, and only the right-hand column really survives. Line by line: [something], 1 measure; [something], 1 measure; then a longer heading made of six or seven signs followed by 2 units; another lost entry with 1 unit of a different measure; a two-sign item with 1 measure; the sign M297 again, its number broken away; a lost item with 1 unit; M297 once more with 1 unit; and a final entry too damaged to read. The signs naming the goods belong to a script nobody can yet read, so the quantities are all we can recover. 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) [...] M038~e M288, 1(N39B) [...] M297(?), 1(N39B) M305 M388 M146 M128 M096 M387~a M011 [x], 2(N01)(?) [...] x, 1(N24) M218 M243~h, 1(N39B) M297, [...] [...], 1(N01) M297, 1(N24) x, [...] (reverse: uninscribed / surface blank as preserved)
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
[...] M038~e M288# , 1(N39B) [...] M297#? , 1(N39B) M305 M388 M146 M128~dd M096 M387~a M011# x , 2(N01)#? [...] x , 1(N24) M218 M243~h# , 1(N39B) M297 , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M297 , 1(N24) x , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4767. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009205) — 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.