Position in chronology
MDP 17, 048
About this tablet
An administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3100 BCE — and written in proto-Elamite or closely related proto-cuneiform script. It records quantities of commodities or goods against a series of sign-categories, most of which remain undeciphered. Tablets like this are among the very earliest written documents in human history, produced by temple or palace administrators to track the movement of goods. Because proto-Elamite has not been fully deciphered, the specific items counted and the identities of the parties involved cannot yet be read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several categories of goods — their exact nature is unknown because the signs used to name them have not yet been deciphered — each paired with a numerical quantity. The quantities are expressed in a standard Uruk-period counting system: entries record amounts such as '2 units,' '1 unit,' '1 large unit plus 1 smaller unit,' and so on across seven lines. One or two entries are damaged or broken and the full quantities are lost. The overall meaning is clear in outline — it is an accounting record — but what precisely was being counted, and by whom, remains unknown.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[(Sign M175+M136~n)], (damaged/broken) (M387~a) [(M036+1(N39C))], 2(N30C) (M261~a1), 1(N01) (M263), 2(N01) [...] (M124), 1(N30C) 1(N30D) (M387~ef) (M248~e), 1(N30C) 1(N30D) (M036?), 1(N24) 1(N30C@b) 1(N30D@b)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
|M175+M136~n|# , M387~a |M036+1(N39C)|# , 2(N30C) M261~a1 , 1(N01) M263 , 2(N01)# [...] M124# , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M387~ef M248~e , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M036? , 1(N24) 1(N30C@b) 1(N30D@b)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 048. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008246) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
Related sources
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.