Position in chronology
MDP 17, 023
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (in modern southwest Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the oldest writing in the world outside Mesopotamia. It records several categories of commodities or goods, each identified by a sign-group whose meaning has not yet been deciphered, alongside numerical quantities in the Uruk numerical system. The final line appears to give a grand total — 7(N14) 3(N01) — summing the entries above. Proto-Elamite writing remains largely undeciphered, so this tablet is a fascinating relic of early bureaucracy whose exact content still eludes us.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists six separate commodity entries, each under a different category sign, with quantities recorded in an early counting system. The individual amounts — ranging from 1 unit to 2 large units plus 5 small units — are tallied at the bottom, where a final total of 7 large units and 3 small units is given. The categories themselves cannot yet be read in any known language. The rest of the tablet's meaning, like nearly all proto-Elamite writing, remains beyond our current understanding.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLine 1: M388 M262 M097~f M218 M288 — 1(N14) 3(N01) Line 2: M024~a1 M033~a M371 M288 — 3(N01) Line 3: [x] M048~k M387~ef M057 M288 — 1(N01) Line 4: M054~i M371 M288 — 1(N01) Line 5: M048~k M219 M218 M288 — 2(N14) 5(N01) Line 6: M175 M218~b1 M259[?] M218 M288 — 2(N14) 2(N01) Line 7 (total): M288 — 7(N14) 3(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M388 M262 M097~f M218 M288 , 1(N14) 3(N01) M024~a1# M033~a M371 M288 , 3(N01) x M048~k M387~ef M057 M288 , 1(N01) M054~i M371 M288 , 1(N01) M048~k M219 M218 M288 , 2(N14) 5(N01)! M175 M218~b1 M259#? M218 M288 , 2(N14) 2(N01) M288 , 7(N14) 3(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 023. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008221) — 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.