Position in chronology
MDP 17, 150
About this tablet
This is one of the earliest written documents in human history — a proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from Susa (in modern southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3200–3000 BCE, the Uruk period. It records quantities of unidentified commodities against a series of archaic signs whose meanings remain undeciphered, organized in the columnar ledger format typical of early Mesopotamian bureaucracy. The final line preserves what appears to be a total or summary numeral. Most of the sign categories on this tablet cannot yet be read as words — they belong to a stage of writing that was still pictographic and not fully phonetic — making this a tantalizing but largely opaque window into the world's first administrative record-keeping.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists a series of entries, each pairing one or more unidentified category signs with a quantity. The quantities range from small units (one or two marks) to larger ones (three of a bigger denomination). A separate sign that may function as a commodity classifier or structural divider appears throughout. The final surviving line records a single large numeral — likely a grand total. Most of the commodity names and category labels cannot yet be read; the rest of the content is too damaged or broken to recover.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[ x M381# M366# [...] , [...] ] [ M387 M263~b1 M288 , 2(N39B) ] [ M036# , [...] ] [ [...] , 2(N30C) ] [ M036 , 1(N24) 2(N30C) ] [ [...] , 1(N01) ] [ M036 , 1(N30C) 2(N30C@b) ] [ M387~ef M050~m , 2(N30C) ] [ M036 , 1(N24) [...] ] [ [...] , 1(N01) ] [ M309~d , 3(N14) ] [ M387~ef# x , [...] ] [ M297 , 2(N30C) ] [ [...] , [...] ] [ 1(N34) ]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
x M381# M366# [...] , [...] M387 M263~b1 M288 , 2(N39B) M036# , [...] [...] , 2(N30C) M036 , 1(N24) 2(N30C) [...] , 1(N01) M036 , 1(N30C) 2(N30C@b) M387~ef M050~m , 2(N30C) M036 , 1(N24) [...] [...] , 1(N01) M309~d , 3(N14) M387~ef# x , [...] M297 , 2(N30C) [...] , [...] 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 150. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008348) — 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.