Position in chronology
MDP 17, 157
About this tablet
One of the earliest administrative tablets in human history, this proto-Elamite clay record comes from Susa in southwestern Iran and dates to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — a time when writing itself was barely a century old. Each line pairs a cluster of as-yet-undeciphered sign-groups with numerical quantities, almost certainly tracking commodities such as grain, livestock, or textiles managed by a temple or palace storeroom. The final line preserves what appears to be a total or summary entry, a bookkeeping convention shared with contemporary proto-cuneiform tablets from Uruk in Mesopotamia. Proto-Elamite script has never been fully deciphered, so the words behind the signs remain unknown, but the arithmetic logic of the accounting is clear.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a running list of commodities — each entry naming a type or category of goods followed by a count. Most entries record quantities of two units (using the N39B denomination), with occasional smaller or mixed amounts. The final line appears to be a grand total: three large units, one medium unit, and two small units. Several entries are too broken to read; the categories themselves remain undeciphered. What survives is the skeleton of an ancient inventory.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLine 1: M387 M124 M009 M338~b M066~a M288 , 2(N39B) Line 2: M124[...] , [...] Line 3: [...] M288 , 2(N39B) Line 4: M066 M246~b M066 M288 , 1(N39B) Line 5: M124[...] , [...] Line 6: [...] x M288 , 2(N39B) 2(N30C) Line 7: M124 M371 M009 M371 x [...] , [...] Line 8: [...] M288 , 1(N39B) 1(N24) Line 9: M304 M001 M288 , 2(N30C) Line 10: [...] M243~j(?) , 1(N39B) 1(N24) Line 11: M288 , 1(N30C) Line 12: [...] , 3(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C) [Signs are proto-Elamite and cannot be rendered in phonetic transcription; numerals represent commodity counts in the N39B, N30C, and N24 systems]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M387 M124 M009 M338~b M066~a M288 , 2(N39B) M124# [...] , [...] [...] M288# , 2(N39B) M066 M246~b M066 M288 , 1(N39B) M124# [...] , [...] [...] x M288 , 2(N39B) 2(N30C) M124 M371 M009# M371# x [...] , [...] [...] M288# , 1(N39B) 1(N24) M304 M001 M288 , 2(N30C) [...] M243~j#? , 1(N39B) 1(N24) M288 , 1(N30C) [...] , 3(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 157. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008355) — 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.