Position in chronology
MDP 06, 268
About this tablet
A fragmentary proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (southwest Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE — among the very earliest writing in human history. The tablet records quantities of commodities or institutional disbursements under sign-categories that remain only partially deciphered, with numerals running up to at least 14 units per entry. Susa was a major administrative center in close cultural contact with southern Mesopotamia, and tablets like this one were the bureaucratic backbone of the earliest urban economies. Its specific commodity and the names of any recipients or officials are too damaged or too archaic to recover with certainty.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a damaged accounting record. One category (M346) is listed against quantities of 1 and 2 units; a second entry records 14 units of an unidentified category (M111?, M240~b, M057~a); further entries record 4 units and 11 units of other partially legible categories (M250~ba/M387, M096). Several lines are too broken to read. The rest of the tablet is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] 3 M346 , 1 [x x] [...] , [...] [...] M111? M240~b M057~a , 1(N14) 4 [= 14] M346 , 2 [...] [...] M250~ba M387 x , 4 [...] [...] x M096 , 1(N14) 1 [= 11] [...] [...] M250~ba M387 M218 [...] , [...] [...] M240 M057~a , 3 [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] 3(N01)# M346 , 1(N01) x x [...] , [...] [...] M111#? M240~b M057~a , 1(N14) 4(N01) M346 , 2(N01) [...] [...] M250~ba# M387 x , 4(N01) [...] [...] x M096 , 1(N14) 1(N01) [...] [...] M250~ba M387 M218 [...] , [...] [...] M240 M057~a , 3(N01) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 268. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008061) — 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.