Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4770
About this tablet
A small clay account tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the proto-Elamite script — a writing system that remains largely undeciphered. The numerals are perfectly legible: five entries of one, six, two, two and nine units are booked against named categories or persons, followed by a summary line combining a count (15) with two different measures of capacity. We can read the arithmetic of this transaction but not the words: proto-Elamite word-signs like M206~d and M288 still have no agreed meaning. The Louvre acquired it from the French excavations at Susa; the red number 4770 and the ink label Sb 15279 on the tablet are modern museum marks.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A short ledger, headed by a single classifying sign. Five entries follow, each pairing a category or supplier with a quantity: one unit, six, two, two more, and nine. At the bottom the scribe drew the account together — fifteen units plus two measures of one capacity type and one of another, closed off with a further large-unit mark. What the goods actually were is lost with the script itself: the numbers survive, the nouns do not.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) M157 (heading sign) [...] — M206~d: 1 (unit) M153+M320+M153 — M206~d: 6 (units) M195+M038~a — M206~d: 2 (units) [... ...]: 2 (units) M206~d: 9 (units) (Summary / reverse) M288: 1(N14) 5(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24) 1(N34)
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
M157 , x [... M206~d] , 1(N01)# |M153+M320+M153| M206~d , 6(N01)# |M195+M038~a| M206~d , 2(N01) x x , 2(N01) M206~d , 9(N01) M288 , 1(N14) 5(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24)# 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4770. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009208) — 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.