MDP 06, 275

~3000 BCE·Uruk Period·P008068

About this tablet

This is one of the earliest written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It records quantities of commodities, most likely dairy products or livestock-related goods, alongside a series of numerical notations using the archaic counting system of the period. The tablet belongs to the very earliest phase of writing, when signs were still largely pictographic and used almost exclusively to track economic transactions — not yet a tool for recording language as such. Its survival gives us a direct window into the bureaucratic management of goods in one of the world's first urban societies.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This administrative record lists several categories of goods — probably dairy products or related commodities — each accompanied by quantities expressed in the archaic numerical system. The entries follow the typical proto-cuneiform format: a commodity sign on the left, a numerical count on the right, with multiple line entries for different sub-categories or recipients. Several lines are too damaged or broken to read fully, but the surviving entries record amounts such as five and three units of one category, two of another, and smaller single-unit allocations elsewhere. The rest of the tablet is too fragmentary to reconstruct completely.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

[...] x, 5(N01) 3(N39B) [...] [...], [...] 2(N30C) [dairy/commodity sign] [sign] [M388] [M387] [M387] [M352~n2] [M228~ga] [M347] [M377~e], [...] [...], [...] 1(N24) 1(N30C) [|M175+M136|?] [M387~ca], 1(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C) x [...], [...] [...], [...] 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N30C) [M038~a1] x [...], [...]

Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Transliteration

[...] x , 5(N01)# 3(N39B) [...]
[...] , [...] 2(N30C)#
M009~a M149~a1 M388 M387 M387 M352~n2 M228~ga M347 M377~e , [...]
[...] , [...] 1(N24)# 1(N30C)#
|M175+M136|#? M387~ca , 1(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)
x [...] , [...]
[...] , [...] 1(N01)# 1(N39B)# 1(N30C)
M038~a1 x [...] , [...]

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 275. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008068) — 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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