Position in chronology
MDP 06, 383
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It belongs to the proto-Elamite or proto-cuneiform scribal tradition — among the very earliest writing systems in human history — and records what appears to be an accounting entry: a series of undeciphered commodity or entity signs, each followed by a tally of '1', with a final summary line of '8'. The signs have not yet been fully deciphered; proto-Elamite in particular remains largely unread, so we can describe the structure (a list with counts) but not the specific goods or people involved. The tablet is held at the Louvre and is part of the foundational Susa administrative archive that documents the earliest experiments in record-keeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a short list of eight entries, each recording one unit of something — the specific commodities or categories are not yet readable, as the script remains undeciphered. A header sign opens the document, followed by eight lines each pairing an unread sign-group with the count '1'. The final line may be a subtotal: eight units in all. The rest of the content is lost to erosion and damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM384~e , M388 M332~d M329[?] M007~a[?] M096 , 1(N01) M377~e M129[?] M263 M218 , 1(N01) M370 , 1(N01) [x] M338~a[?] M066[?] , 1(N01)[?] [x] M047[?] M295~t M297[?] M218 , 1(N01) M099[?] M297[?] M057~a2 , 1(N01) M057~b[?] M047[?] M057~a[?] , 1(N01) 1(N02) M388[?] , 8(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M384~e , M388 M332~d M329# M007~a# M096 , 1(N01) M377~e M129#? M263 M218 , 1(N01) M370 , 1(N01) x M338~a# M066# , 1(N01)#? x M047# M295~t M297#? M218 , 1(N01) M099#? M297# M057~a2 , 1(N01) M057~b# M047# M057~a#? , 1(N01) 1(N02) M388# , 8(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 383. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008164) — 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.