Position in chronology
MDP 06, 317
About this tablet
An archaic administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE — among the very earliest writing in human history. It records quantities of commodities or animals under several undeciphered category signs, in the proto-Elamite or proto-cuneiform numerical notation system. The tablet is held at the Louvre (inventory Sb 15154) and is catalogued as MDP 06, 317. Because proto-Elamite script remains largely undeciphered, we can read the numbers confidently but the names of the goods or categories they count are still unknown — making this a vivid illustration of how much of the ancient world's earliest bookkeeping remains locked away from us.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a list of quantities under several category headings whose meanings we cannot yet read. The first entry records 98 units of something; the second, 51 units; the third, 90; the fourth (partially broken) around 34; the fifth, 20; and the final entry, a somewhat different notation combining two size-classes of units — 2 large and 93 smaller ones. The top of the tablet carries a single heading sign whose function is unknown. The rest is legible as numbers, but the commodities or animals being counted remain undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric — function unknown] M005~a M257~d M348 M346 , 9(N14) 8(N01) [= 98 units] M263~1 M295~da [x] , 5(N14) 1(N01) [= 51 units] |M218+M320|# [x] M001 , 9(N14) [= 90 units] M009#? [...] , [3(N14) 4(N01)] [= ca. 34 units] M136~a#? M005~a , 2(N14) [= 20 units] M346 , 2(N23) 9(N14) 3(N01) [= 2 large + 93 small units]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M005~a M257~d M348 M346 , 9(N14) 8(N01) M263~1 M295~da x , 5(N14) 1(N01) |M218+M320|# x M001 , 9(N14) M009#? [...] , [3(N14) 4(N01)] M136~a#? M005~a , 2(N14) M346 , 2(N23) 9(N14) 3(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 317. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008106) — 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.