Position in chronology
MDP 06, 254
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest administrative tablets in human history, dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE) and found at Susa in southwestern Iran. It records quantities of commodities — goods whose exact nature we cannot fully identify — assigned under various sign-categories that likely denote types of products, workers, or institutions. The numerical notations use a hierarchical system of round and elongated impressions representing different orders of magnitude, a precursor to true writing. Tablets like this are the very roots of bureaucracy: before words could be written, quantities could be counted and tracked.
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, then lists a series of commodity entries each paired with a numerical quantity. The amounts range from small counts of 2 or 5 units up to totals running into the dozens — the largest surviving entry at the bottom of the tablet records something on the order of over forty units in combined denominations. Many of the commodity signs cannot yet be read as words, so the precise goods being counted remain unknown, but the document is clearly a tally or allocation record of multiple categories of goods or rations. Several lines are broken or lost entirely.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] M374~c : 2 M124 M391 M218~b M295~wa [...] : [...] 4 [units] 3 [units] 1 [unit(??)] [...] : 1 [large unit] 3 [units] 2 [sub-units] [...] M066 : 1 [large unit] 3 [units] 3 [sub-units] M218 M370 M219 M263 : 2 M263 M242~b M096 : 5 M386~a M242~b M096 : 1 [large unit] 2 [units] 2 [sub-units] [...] M352~n |M218+X|(?) : [...] M218 M295~ka M218 : 3 M146 M380 M263 [...] : [...] [...] M218 M295~ka M218 : 3 [illegible entry] [...] : 2 [highest units] 2 [large units] 3 [sub-units] 1 [smallest unit(?)]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M374~c , 2(N01) M124 M391 M218~b# M295~wa [...] , [...] 4(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N24)#? [...] , 1(N14) 3(N01) 2(N39B) [...] M066 , 1(N14) 3(N01) 3(N39B) M218 M370 M219 M263 , 2(N01) M263 M242~b M096 , 5(N01) M386~a M242~b M096 , 1(N14) 2(N01) 2(N39B) [...] M352~n |M218+X|? , [...] M218# M295~ka M218 , 3(N01) M146# M380 M263 [...] , [...] [...] M218 M295~ka M218 , 3(N01) x , [...] , 2(N45) 2(N14) 3(N39B) 1(N24)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 254. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008049) — 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.