Position in chronology
MDP 17, 031
About this tablet
An archaic Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern southwest Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the world's earliest attempts at writing. The tablet records a series of commodity entries, each paired with small numerical values, under an opening heading sign whose meaning has not yet been deciphered. Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered as a whole: scholars can read the numbers and recognize the sign forms, but the words behind the signs are still unknown. Tablets like this one are the bureaucratic backbone of an early urban economy, tracking goods and resources through a system of administrators, and this example — held at the Louvre — is one of thousands excavated at Susa that testify to a literate, commercially organized society predating even the earliest Mesopotamian cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet opens with a heading or category marker and then lists seven or eight entries, each recording a small quantity — mostly 2 units, with one entry of 4 units and one larger entry of 2 larger units plus 2 smaller units. Each entry combines several sign-groups that presumably name a commodity or a category of goods under specific classifiers or qualifiers. Because Proto-Elamite writing has not been deciphered, we cannot say in modern words what goods are being counted — only that a careful accountant at Susa recorded them systematically, entry by entry, in what was already a mature bureaucratic tradition. A final isolated notation of 2 units closes the tablet. The rest, if anything was lost to breakage, is gone.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157] [Line 1:] M207~e M131~d[?] M248~g M388 M004[?] |M218+M101|[?] M288 , 2(N01) [Line 2:] M387~l M001 , 4(N01) [Line 3:] M102~i M388 M332~f M004 M338~q , 2(N01) [Line 4:] M051~a M462 M003~b , 2(N01) [Line 5:] M209~d M080~d M320 M066~a , 2(N01) [Line 6:] M153 M145~a M371 , 2(N01) [Line 7:] M218 |M218+M288| M288 , 2(N14) 2(N01) [Isolated entry:] 2(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157# , M207~e M131~d#? M248~g# M388# M004#? |M218+M101|#? M288 , 2(N01) M387~l# M001 , 4(N01) M102~i M388 M332~f M004 M338~q , 2(N01) M051~a M462 M003~b , 2(N01) M209~d M080~d M320 M066~a , 2(N01) M153 M145~a M371 , 2(N01) M218 |M218+M288| M288 , 2(N14) 2(N01) 2(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 031. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008229) — 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.