Position in chronology
MDP 06, 251
About this tablet
One of the earliest administrative records in human history, this small clay tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran) dates to the proto-literate Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It is written not in cuneiform proper but in proto-Elamite or a closely related proto-writing system, using pictographic signs and numerical notations to track quantities of commodities — probably livestock, grain, or other institutional goods. The tablet is held at the Louvre and shows multiple faces, with a heading sign at the top, several commodity signs with associated counts, and a large numerical total at the bottom. It is a snapshot of the very earliest bureaucracy: temple or palace officials counting and recording resources before writing had fully matured into a readable language.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet opens with a heading or document-type marker. It then records entries: one unit under the first commodity sign, two units under the second, one unit associated with a cluster of six sign categories, five units under the sign appearing again, and a final totalling entry expressed in a mixed numeral system — four large units, two medium units, and one small unit. The precise goods being counted are not yet identifiable with certainty; the text is an accountant's tally, not a narrative. The rest of the signs remain too poorly understood to render in modern words.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157] M383~j / M260~1 — 1 M036 — 2 M111(?) / M388 / M057 / M240 / M377~e / M347 / M371 — <1> M036 — 5 M297 — 4(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D)[?]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M383~j# M260~1 , 1(N01) M036 , 2(N01) M111#? M388 M057 M240 M377~e M347 M371 , <1(N01)> M036 , 5(N01) M297 , 4(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 251. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008046) — 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.