Position in chronology
MDP 06, 282
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3100 BCE — and written in proto-Elamite or early proto-cuneiform script, one of the very oldest writing systems in the world. The tablet records quantities of commodities (or possibly livestock or rations) associated with a series of undeciphered sign-categories, each paired with numerical notations. Most of the signs remain undeciphered, as proto-Elamite has not been fully cracked, but the structure — sign, then number — is typical of early accounting records. This is the kind of tablet that shows writing emerging not for literature or religion, but for the mundane necessity of keeping track of goods.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet is an inventory or accounting record. Several commodity entries survive, each followed by a quantity: one entry lists 3 units of something denoted by signs M387 and M264~a; another records M297 with a now-lost number; a further entry carries approximately 1 unit of a larger denomination (N30C); another records 1(N39B) and 1(N24) units of sign M243~j; and the final legible entry assigns 1(N01) and 3(N39B) units to sign M288. The beginning of the tablet and several lines in the middle are too damaged or broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] x M387 M264~a , 3(N01) M297 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N30C)[?] x M243~j[?] , 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] M288 , 1(N01) 3(N39B)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] x M387 M264~a , 3(N01) M297 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N30C)#? x M243~j# , 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] M288 , 1(N01) 3(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 282. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008075) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.