Position in chronology
MDP 17, 173
About this tablet
A fragmentary proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the world's earliest writing. Like thousands of similar tablets from this site, it records quantities of commodities against sign-groups that likely denote goods or categories managed by an early urban institution. The numerical notations (N14 and N01 are different units in the proto-Elamite counting system) suggest tallies of distinct commodity types. Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, so the commodity signs cannot be translated into words, but the accounting structure is clear: a list of items with associated counts, the everyday bookkeeping of one of humanity's first bureaucracies.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an accounts record listing several different commodities alongside their quantities. Entry by entry, it logs amounts — three units of one thing, one unit of another, three of a third, two of a fourth, and so on — alongside sign-groups that identify what is being counted, though we cannot yet read those identifying signs as words. Several lines are too broken to recover. It is, in essence, a ledger page: someone keeping careful track of goods moving through an early Elamite administrative system.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 3(N14) [Sign] [Sign] x [...] , [...] [...] x , 1(N14) [M084] [M388] , 3(N14) [M066] [M219] [M438?] , [...] [...] , 2(N14) x , [...] x , [...] [...] , 2(N01) [M305] x , [...] [...] , 2(N01)[?]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
x , 3(N14) M377 M175 x [...] , [...] [...] x , 1(N14) M084 M388 , 3(N14) M066 M219 M438#? , [...] [...] , 2(N14) x , [...] x , [...] [...] , 2(N01) M305 x , [...] [...] , 2(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 173. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008371) — 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.