Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4791
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 essentially undeciphered. The scribe recorded a list of commodities or persons, each paired with a count made by pressing a stylus and a round rod into the clay: the wedges and circles are the numbers, and they can still be read even though the words cannot. It is a reminder that in the earliest bureaucracies the arithmetic outlives the language: we know exactly how much was counted here, but not what it was.
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 a line naming a commodity or account-holder whose figure is broken away. What follows is a short ledger: 9 units; then 45; 3; 16; 10; 4 against one entry; a lost figure; 1; 4 — with the same recurring sign standing at the head of several of the numbered lines, apparently the category being tallied. The final surviving line, whose heading is broken, closes with a small measure written in a different, capacity-type notation. The reverse bears only a few scattered impressions and no readable text.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 1. M005~a — (header; no quantity) 2. M305 M388 M009 M004 [...] — [quantity lost] 3. [...] — 9 (N01) 4. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 4 (N14) 5 (N01) 5. [...] — 3 (N01) 6. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 1 (N14) 6 (N01) 7. [...] — 1 (N14) 8. M228~d M265~1(?) — 4 (N01) 9. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — [quantity lost] 10. M246~b M263 — 1 (N01) 11. |M036 + 1(N30D)| — 4 (N01) 12. [...] — [...] 1 (N39B) 2 (N30C) 1 (N30D) (No further inscribed text survives; the reverse carries only a few isolated impressions.)
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
M005~a , M305 M388 M009 M004 [...] , [...] [...] , 9(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 4(N14) 5(N01)# [...] , 3(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 1(N14) 6(N01)# [...] , 1(N14) M228~d M265~1? , 4(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , [...] M246~b M263 , 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 4(N01)# [...] , [...] 1(N39B)# 2(N30C)# 1(N30D)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4791. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009228) — 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.