Position in chronology
MDP 06, 253
About this tablet
This is a small administrative accounting tablet from proto-Elamite Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. It records quantities of commodities — probably goods, animals, or rations — organized in short entries each followed by a numeral, in the typical columnar bookkeeping format of proto-Elamite administration. The signs are largely undeciphered, as proto-Elamite script has not been fully decoded, but the structure of commodity sign plus numeral is unmistakable and characteristic of early institutional record-keeping. It belongs to the vast archive of proto-Elamite tablets excavated at Susa, which together represent one of the world's earliest bureaucratic traditions.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several categories of goods or commodities with their quantities: the first entry (partially broken) records 5 units of something in a complex category; the next line records 2 units of a second type; then 1 unit of a third; then 2 units involving a combined sign category; and finally 1 larger-unit quantity. The exact nature of the commodities cannot be determined — the script remains undeciphered — but the entries clearly represent an institutional tally, the kind of daily accounting record a temple or palace administrator would keep track of incoming or outgoing goods.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Sign cluster: M327+M342] (broken/uncertain) [Sign cluster: M153+M106~a] M066 M242~b M096 M387~eh M004 M346 , 5 [M249~m] [M332~d?] [M057~a2?] M346 , 2 M370 M346 , 1 [M218~d+M288?] x M218 M346 , 2 M346 , 1 (larger unit)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
|M327+M342|#? , |M153+M106~a|# M066 M242~b M096 M387~eh M004 M346 , 5(N01) M249~m M332~d#? M057~a2# M346 , 2(N01) M370 M346 , 1(N01) |M218~d+M288|#? x M218 M346 , 2(N01) M346 , 1(N14)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 253. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008048) — 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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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.