Position in chronology
MDP 06, 303
About this tablet
A heavily fragmented proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE. It records quantities of an unidentified commodity or commodities using the numerical notation typical of early Mesopotamian administration. The signs are among the earliest forms of writing ever used, predating readable Sumerian by several centuries. Because the tablet is broken and the sign readings are uncertain even to specialists, the precise subject — whether livestock, grain, or another managed resource — cannot be determined.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is too broken and too early in the history of writing to yield a clean, readable account. What survives appears to be a tally: one or more category signs (whose meanings have not yet been established) paired with numerical notations — quantities recorded in the archaic number system used at Susa around 3000 BCE. The numbers visible include units roughly equivalent to '1', larger round-number groupings, and sub-units, but without knowing what commodity the signs label, we cannot say more than: someone counted something, in several entries, and wrote it down. Much of the tablet is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] M263~e(?), 1 [x] [...], [...] [...] M269~a3(?), 1(N30C) 1(N30D)(?) [...], [...] 1(N30C)(?) M288(?), 1 (N24) 2(N30C)(?) 1(N30D)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M263~e#? , 1(N01) x [...] , [...] [...] M269~a3#?! , 1(N30C) 1(N30D)#? [...] , [...] 1(N30C)# M288#? , 1(N01) 1(N24) 2(N30C)# 1(N30D)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 303. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008092) — 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.