Position in chronology
MDP 06, 245
About this tablet
A Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. It records quantities of some commodity or commodities under a series of unread ideographic signs, the exact meanings of which remain undeciphered — Proto-Elamite has not been cracked. The tablet is broken into several joining and non-joining fragments, with substantial lacunae. It is one of thousands of such accounting documents from Susa that show an early bureaucratic economy tracking goods, animals, or labour, contemporary with the earliest writing in Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a fragment of an ancient accounting record. Several entries survive, each pairing an ideographic sign or combination of signs with a numerical value — quantities such as 1, 2, 3, or larger units recorded in the Proto-Elamite number system. The beginning and end of almost every line are broken away, so we cannot read what commodity is being counted or who is responsible. The surviving numbers include large-unit and small-unit notations (N45, N34, N30D, N39B, N39C, and so on), suggesting a sophisticated multi-level counting system. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] 1(N45) [...] [...] M288, 1(N34) [...] [...] |M157+M288|# M125# M388 [...], [...] [...], [...] 3(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) M305# M016# M288, [...] [...] M157 |M175+M175| M288, 2(N34) [...] [...] [M288], [...] 2(N45)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo8 uncertain terms ↓
- N45 — Largest standard round impressed numeral in the proto-cuneiform sexagesimal system; conventionally read as a very high-order unit (possibly 3600 in sexagesimal counting), but its precise value here is commodity-dependent and cannot be resolved without fuller context.
- N34 — High-order impressed numeral; value varies by metrological sub-system. Possibly functions as a sub-total or totalling numeral in the final line, but this is uncertain.
- N39B — Elongated impressed numeral found in specific metrological systems, possibly area or capacity measures. Commodity context is unrecoverable from this fragment.
- M288 — Repeatedly attested sign in proto-cuneiform Susa tablets; may function as a commodity qualifier or category marker. Semantic value not yet established with certainty.
- M157 — Unidentified proto-cuneiform category/heading sign. Institutional or commodity reference unknown for this corpus.
- |M157+M288|# — Compound sign, marked '#' by editors indicating uncertain reading. The combination is not well paralleled in current sign lists.
- |M175+M175| — Repeated compound of M175; the doubling may indicate intensification or a specific commodity sub-class. Meaning unestablished.
- M125, M305, M016, M388 — Proto-cuneiform category signs whose semantic values at Susa in this period are debated or unidentified; listed as transliterations only.
Reasoning ↓
Visually, the tablet survives in several joining and non-joining fragments photographed together (museum number Sb 06389, red ink number '245' visible on the edge). The clay surface is heavily eroded and cracked, with significant lacunae especially at the upper left and lower right. Individual wedge impressions and circular/oval numeral impressions are visible in both the upper and lower fragments: in the upper fragment I can discern clusters of impressed circle-and-line signs consistent with N34/N45-class numerals and what appear to be incised linear signs (the M-series category signs). The lower fragment shows a dense block of incised signs at the upper left which is consistent with the M305/M016/M288 cluster in the transliteration. However, the resolution and erosion make it impossible to confirm individual sign identities or distinguish, e.g., M157 from adjacent signs with confidence. The transliteration is taken from the MDP 06 edition (Scheil) and later CDLI encoding; the photo is broadly consistent with the transliteration's description of a fragmentary multi-entry tablet, but specific sign-by-sign verification from the photo alone is not possible. The '#' diacritics in the transliteration indicate the editors' own uncertainty about those signs. This is transliteration-driven with partial photo confirmation of overall layout only.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 15, 2026 · 2242 in / 1058 out tokens
Transliteration
[...] , [...] 1(N45) [...] [...] M288 , 1(N34) [...] [...] |M157+M288|# M125# M388 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) M305# M016# M288 , [...] [...] M157 |M175+M175| M288 , 2(N34) [...] [...] [M288] , [...] 2(N45)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 245. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008042) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.