Position in chronology
MDP 06, 342
About this tablet
A heavily fragmented proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE. It records quantities of commodities or institutional allocations using numerical notations and sign sequences whose precise meanings remain undeciphered at this early stage of writing. Susa was a major center of early proto-literate administration, and tablets like this one represent some of the oldest attempts at systematic record-keeping in human history. Because proto-cuneiform is still only partially understood, most of the sign sequences cannot be rendered as readable words — but the numerals and structure clearly indicate an accounting document of some kind.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is too fragmentary and too early in the history of writing for a fully readable modern paraphrase. What survives are several entries recording small quantities — 4 units of one commodity, 2 units of another, then a larger count of 1 (N45, a higher-order numeral), then 1 (N14), followed by a final damaged entry. The sign sequences labeling each commodity are not yet fully deciphered. The rest of the tablet is lost or too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...], 4 M263 M338~a M371[?], [...] [x] M251~c M009, 2 |M195+M038~a| M301 M056~f, 1(N45) M057, 1(N14) M005~a M388 M386~a M230 [x], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 4(N01) M263 M338~a M371#? , [...] x M251~c M009 , 2(N01) |M195+M038~a|# M301 M056~f , 1(N45) M057 , 1(N14) M005~a# M388 M386~a M230 x , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 342. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008124) — 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.