Position in chronology
MDP 06, 243
About this tablet
A heavily fragmented proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa, Iran, dating to the late Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE). It preserves several columns of commodity or category signs paired with small numerical notations — almost certainly a tally or accounting record of goods, rations, or institutional disbursements. The tablet is too damaged and the signs too numerous and undeciphered to reconstruct the specific transaction, but it belongs to the very earliest horizon of writing, when scribes at Susa were developing their own local variant of the proto-cuneiform script used in southern Mesopotamia. Tablets like this are among humanity's oldest written documents, born not from literature or religion, but from the need to keep count.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a list: each line records one or more category signs — identifying some type of commodity, person-group, or institution — followed by a number, almost always '1' or '2'. The entries read something like: '[category A], [category B]: 2 units'; '[category C]: 1 unit'; and so on through eleven partially legible lines. Several lines are broken at the beginning or end, and the commodity identities behind the signs are not yet fully deciphered. The rest of the tablet's content is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] (sign M072), 1 M387, M066~1, M370, M072: 2 M365, M362, [broken sign], [...] [...] [broken sign]: 1 M370: 1 M371, M332~d, M218: 1 M250~n(?), M388, M387~c [...]: [...] [...] M066~2, M352~n, M096: 1 M139, M388, M387~l, M387~ca, M388, M057, M219(?) [...]: [...] [...] M357, M388, M099, [broken sign], M066, M386~a, M066(?): 1 M327, M388 [...]: [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M072# , 1(N01) M387 M066~1# M370 M072 , 2(N01) M365 M362# x , [...] [...] x , 1(N01) M370# , 1(N01) M371 M332~d M218 , 1(N01) M250~n? M388 M387~c [...] , [...] [...] M066~2 M352~n M096 , 1(N01) M139 M388 M387~l M387~ca M388 M057 M219? [...] , [...] [...] M357 M388 M099# x M066# M386~a M066#? , 1(N01) M327 M388# [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 243. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008040) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
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Related sources
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.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.