Position in chronology
MDP 06, 5014
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE — and written in the proto-Elamite or proto-cuneiform script before either Sumerian or Elamite writing was fully systematized. The tablet records quantities of commodities (likely agricultural goods or livestock) against tally marks, with each line pairing a sign or combination of signs with a numerical count. Most of the commodity signs remain undeciphered: proto-Elamite script has never been fully read, and this tablet is a vivid example of the challenge. It survives in several fragments now held at the Louvre, and its museum numbers (Sb 15239, A 5014) are visible in the photograph on the reverse.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists what appear to be several different commodities or categories, each paired with a count of one unit — though the specific goods involved cannot yet be translated because the script remains undeciphered. One entry records a slightly larger quantity (N24, roughly equivalent to a higher numerical unit), but the surrounding text is broken. Several lines are lost or too damaged to read. In essence: a short account of goods, tallied by an administrator at Susa around 3200–3000 BCE, whose exact meaning is still waiting to be unlocked.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM218 M057~d x [...] , [...] [...] M219 M218 , 1(N01) M029~b M128~da [...] , [...] [...] x , 1(N01) M230# , 1(N24) [...] [...] M259 |M218~d+M288| M066 , 1(N01) [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M218 M057~d x [...] , [...] [...] M219 M218 , 1(N01) M029~b M128~da [...] , [...] [...] x , 1(N01) M230# , 1(N24) [...] [...] M259 |M218~d+M288| M066 , 1(N01) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 5014. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008196) — 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.