Position in chronology
MDP 17, 075
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the late Uruk period, roughly 3100–2900 BCE. It records quantities of commodities or rations assigned to named categories or commodity classes, using proto-Elamite numerical notation alongside sign groups whose exact meanings remain undeciphered. Proto-Elamite is the world's most extensively attested undeciphered writing system, and tablets like this one are the primary evidence for its structure. Even without a full reading, the tablet shows a systematic bookkeeping practice — entries pairing a sign group (commodity or category?) with a number — that underpins the earliest administrative economies in western Iran.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists a series of commodity categories alongside quantities: one group receives 4 units, another 4 units, a third 11 units, the next 10, then 1, then 4, then 1, then 3, then 3 more. A final entry records a larger total — at least 71 units, though the line is broken. Because proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, we can read the numbers clearly but cannot yet name what goods or people these entries refer to. The rest is either lost or still beyond our understanding.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...], [...], 4 M193, 4 [x], 11 + 1 M136~k, 10 M210~g, 1 [...], 4 M348, 1 M325, 3 [...], 3 [...] x, 61 + 10 + [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] , 4(N01) M193 , 4(N01) x , 1(N14) 1(N01) M136~k , 1(N14) M210~g , 1(N01) [...] , 4(N01) M348 , 1(N01) M325 , 3(N01) [...] , 3(N01)# [...] x , 1(N34) 1(N14) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 075. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008273) — 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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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.