Position in chronology
MDP 17, 064
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dated to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the earliest written records in human history. It records quantities of commodities or livestock categories, each identified by a pictographic sign and followed by a numerical notation. The reverse is blank, which is typical for short Proto-Elamite accounts. Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered: we can read the numerals and recognize the sign forms, but the spoken language and precise meanings of most commodity signs are still unknown.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists several categories of goods or animals — each identified by a distinct pictographic sign — with quantities assigned to each: two units of one category, an unknown quantity of another (now lost), two units of a third, two of a fourth, one of a fifth, and one of a damaged final entry. Think of it as a tally sheet: a Susian accountant recording how many of each type of item was counted or allocated. The specific commodities cannot be read, as Proto-Elamite writing remains undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM341 , M038~b1 M032 , 2(N01) M210~n , [...] M184~e M032 , 2(N01) M323~d M032 , 2(N01) M368~d M032 , 1(N01) [x] M032# M032# , 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
M341 , M038~b1 M032 , 2(N01) M210~n , [...] M184~e M032 , 2(N01) M323~d M032 , 2(N01) M368~d M032 , 1(N01) x M032# M032# , 1(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 064. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008262) — 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.