Position in chronology
MDP 17, 005
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest writing systems ever used, and one that remains undeciphered to this day. The tablet records quantities of goods or animals distributed across several numbered entries, organized under heading signs whose exact meanings are still unknown. Both faces of the clay tablet survive, along with the edges, giving a relatively complete record. It is a small piece of the vast bureaucratic machinery that managed the economy of one of the ancient world's first urban centers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a damaged or uncertain heading sign. Below it, a category marker is followed by a quantity: 2 large units and 1 medium unit (the rest of that line is broken away). Further entries record: 1 standard unit under one sign; 1 standard unit under the repeated category sign; 1 large unit (and possibly more, now lost) under an undeciphered commodity sign; and finally, under what may be a structural separator sign, a total or sub-total of 4 large units, 1 medium unit, and 2 smaller units. The signs naming the actual commodities cannot yet be read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine|M136+M365|# , |M175+M153| M270~e , 2(N39B) 1(N30C) [...] [...] M264~d2 , 1(N01) M270~e , 1(N01) M297 , 1(N39B) [...] M288 , 4(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
|M136+M365|# , |M175+M153| M270~e , 2(N39B) 1(N30C) [...] [...] M264~d2 , 1(N01) M270~e , 1(N01) M297 , 1(N39B) [...] M288 , 4(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 005. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008203) — 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.