Position in chronology
MDP 06, 291
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from ancient Susa (modern southwestern Iran), probably dating to around 3100–2900 BCE — among the very earliest writing ever produced. Each line records one or more undeciphered sign clusters paired with a numerical notation, almost certainly tallying discrete quantities of commodities or institutional categories under some form of bookkeeping. Proto-Elamite writing has never been deciphered: the signs are still unread as language, so translation here means reproducing the sign sequence rather than giving a verbal meaning. Tablets like this are the earliest evidence of complex record-keeping in ancient Iran, a parallel tradition to the roughly contemporary Sumerian tablets from Uruk in southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet. Each entry pairs one or more category or commodity signs — all still unreadable as words — with a count of one unit (the numerical sign N39B). Roughly thirteen such entries survive across the broken fragments, though several are too damaged to read in full. Whatever was being counted — livestock, rations, workers, manufactured goods — was being carefully tracked, one item per line, by a scribe at the administrative center of Susa. The specific goods and names, if any were recorded, are lost either to the breakage of the tablet or to the still-undeciphered nature of the script itself.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] M218 M297, 1(N39B) M347[?] [...], [...] [...] M230~a M377~g[?] M218 M223~a, 1(N39B) M270~m M371~a[?] [...], [...] [...], 1(N39B) [...] M217 M361~d M329 M223~a, 1(N39B) [...] [...], 1(N39B) M066 M352~o M096 M297, 1(N39B) M217[?] [...], [...] M066 M297, 1(N39B) M217~e M024 M223~a M066 M288, [...] [...] M296[?], 1(N39B) M024 M281~d M096, 1(N39B)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M218 M297# , 1(N39B) M347#? [...] , [...] [...] M230~a M377~g# M218 M223~a , 1(N39B) M270~m M371~a#? [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N39B) [...] M217 M361~d M329 M223~a , 1(N39B) [...] [...] , 1(N39B)# M066# M352~o M096# M297 , 1(N39B) M217#? [...] , [...] M066# M297 , 1(N39B) M217~e M024 M223~a M066 M288 , [...] [...] M296# , 1(N39B) M024 M281~d M096# , 1(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 291. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008083) — 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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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.