Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4790
About this tablet
A small clay account from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the Proto-Elamite script — a writing system that remains largely undeciphered. The scribe listed a series of entries, each a sign or cluster of signs followed by a number, and then wrote a single large total on the reverse. Even without being able to read the words, the structure is unmistakable: this is bookkeeping, the same kind of ledger that early administrators in Mesopotamia and Iran were producing to track goods, rations, or livestock. The black ink number B 15297 and the red 4790 on the edges are modern museum markings, added long after the tablet reached the Louvre.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a heading sign, then runs down a column of entries: one large unit against the first item, single units against the next two, and then three separate lines each recording five units of the same commodity-and-measure combination. Several entries in between have lost their numbers where the surface broke away. The last itemized line carries a compound quantity — one unit plus a string of smaller capacity measures. The reverse gives the grand total as a single large numeral. What each of the commodities actually was, we cannot say: the script has never been deciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 1. M157~a — (heading; no quantity) 2. M305, (illegible sign) — 1(N14) 3. M096 M112 M136~c M263~b1 — 1(N01) 4. M305 [...] M260 — 1(N01) 5. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 5(N01) 6. M111~b M388 [...] — [quantity lost] 7. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 5(N01) 8. (illegible sign) [...] — [quantity lost] 9. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 5(N01) 10. [...] — [quantity lost] 11. (illegible sign) |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 1(N01)(?) 12. (illegible sign) — 1(N01) 13. M297 — 1(N01) 2(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) (reverse / total) 14. 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~a# , M305# x , 1(N14) M096# M112 M136~c M263~b1 , 1(N01) M305# [...] M260 , 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) M111~b M388 [...] , [...] |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) x [...] , [...] |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) [...] , [...] x |M036+1(N30D)|# , 1(N01)#? x , 1(N01)# M297 , 1(N01) 2(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4790. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009227) — 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.