Position in chronology
MDP 06, 4994
About this tablet
A proto-cuneiform administrative tablet from Susa (ancient Elam, southwestern Iran), dated to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE — and now held at the Louvre. It records quantities of undeciphered commodities identified only by sign sequences, each paired with numerical notations using the proto-cuneiform counting system. Tablets like this are among the very earliest written documents in human history: not yet fully readable language, but a structured system of signs and numbers used to track goods and resources in an early urban economy. This example, with its multi-line commodity list and a summary entry at the bottom, represents the kind of institutional bookkeeping that drove the invention of writing itself.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a heading or classification sign whose meaning is not yet deciphered. It then lists several categories of commodities — each designated by sign combinations we cannot yet read as words — alongside their quantities: one unit of one type, one unit of another, two units of a third, two larger units of a fourth, one larger unit of a fifth, three units of a sixth, and then a longer compound entry totalling five units. The final line, partly broken, appears to be a summary or closing entry recording one unit, three of a second type, two larger units, and one of the largest unit. The remainder of the tablet is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] |M218+M288| |M305+M157| M264~a , 1(N01) M263~b1[?] , 1(N01) M297 , 2(N39B)[?] M002~b , 2(N30C) M379~c , 1(N30C) M262 M387~ca M297[?] , 3(N39B) M111~a M388 M387~ca M318~a M221[?] M377~e M347 M371 |M036+M035| , 5(N01) [...] , 1(N01)[?] 3(N39B)[?] 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
M157 , |M218+M288| |M305+M157| M264~a , 1(N01) M263~b1# , 1(N01) M297 , 2(N39B)# M002~b , 2(N30C) M379~c , 1(N30C) M262 M387~ca M297#? , 3(N39B) M111~a M388 M387~ca M318~a M221# M377~e M347 M371 |M036+M035| , 5(N01) [...] , 1(N01)# 3(N39B)# 2(N30C) 1(N30D)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 4994. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008182) — 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.