Position in chronology
MDP 06, 271
About this tablet
This is a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the Late Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE — among the very earliest written records in human history. It records quantities of commodities assigned to or associated with various institutional categories, using the pictographic sign-system that preceded fully developed cuneiform writing. The numerical notations use the archaic sexagesimal and bisexagesimal systems typical of this period. Because the proto-cuneiform signs here remain largely undeciphered beyond their numerical values, the precise commodities and their organizational context cannot be recovered with certainty, but the tablet clearly belongs to the palace or temple accounting tradition at Susa that parallels contemporary Uruk-period archives in southern Mesopotamia.
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 alongside quantities, though much of the text is too damaged or as yet undeciphered to read in full. One entry records a single unit of something under sign M096; another records four large units (4 N39B) of a commodity designated M371, grouped with two other signs. A quantity of one plus three large units is assigned elsewhere, and another line records three standard units under signs M044~a, M029~b, and M057~a. One entry gives one unit plus one larger measure alongside M281~a and M096. The final readable line begins with M057 and M230~a before breaking off. Much of the tablet is lost or illegible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] M096, 1(N01) M251~c M009 M371, 4(N39B) M218# [...], [...] [...] M220, 1(N01) 3(N39B) M044~a M029~b M057~a, 3(N01)# [...] [...] x M281~a# M096, 1(N01) 1(N24) M057 M230~a M387#? [...], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] M096# , 1(N01) M251~c M009 M371 , 4(N39B) M218# [...] , [...] [...] M220 , 1(N01) 3(N39B) M044~a M029~b M057~a , 3(N01)# [...] [...] x M281~a# M096 , 1(N01) 1(N24) M057 M230~a M387#? [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 271. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008064) — 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.