Position in chronology
MDP 17, 145
About this tablet
This is a fragmentary proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It records quantities of commodities or rations against a series of undeciphered sign-groups, almost certainly representing categories of goods or personnel managed by an institutional household. Proto-Elamite remains an undeciphered script, so the signs can be identified visually and their numerical values read, but the underlying language and most commodity identities cannot be recovered with certainty. Tablets like this are among the earliest administrative records from ancient Iran, reflecting the same bureaucratic impulse that produced the first writing in nearby Mesopotamia at almost exactly the same moment.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a list of commodities or allocations, each line pairing one or more undeciphered category signs with a quantity: 2, then 14, then entries that are too broken to read, then 2 again, then 2 again, then a gap, then 2, then 3, then another broken entry, then 2, and finally a group of three signs paired with 2. The sign-groups name whatever is being counted, but since proto-Elamite has not been deciphered, those names remain unknown. What survives is essentially a tally sheet — small numbers against repeated headings — the kind of record a storekeeper or temple administrator would write to track what came in or went out. Several lines are too damaged to read at all.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 2 [...] (sign M175), 14 (sign M124) [...] , [...] [...] (sign M003~b) , 2 (sign M080~b) (sign M320) (sign M066~a) , 2 (sign M248~c) [...] , [...] [...] , 2 (sign M136~g) (sign M041) , 3 (sign M124) (sign M218) (sign M332#) [...] , [...] [...] , 2 (sign M153) (sign M145) (sign M371) , 2
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 2(N01)# [...] M175 , 1(N14) 4(N01) M124 [...] , [...] [...] M003~b , 2(N01) M080~b M320 M066~a , 2(N01) M248~c [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01) M136~g M041 , 3(N01) M124 M218 M332# [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01) M153 M145 M371 , 2(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 145. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008343) — 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.