Position in chronology
MDP 17, 207
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest phases of writing anywhere on earth. It records quantities of commodities, probably goods such as livestock, grain, or processed products, entered in a columnar format typical of institutional accounting at this period. The signs used are proto-Elamite ideograms whose precise meanings remain undeciphered, but the structured layout of commodity signs paired with numerical notations is unmistakably a tally or inventory. Tablets like this were the administrative backbone of a complex redistributive economy, kept by officials who tracked the flow of goods through a temple or palace storehouse.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several categories of goods — their exact nature is still unknown to modern scholars — alongside quantities recorded in a mixed numerical system using large and small units. One entry records a quantity of approximately 3 large units plus 1 sub-unit of commodity M346 together with M081 and M036; another line gives 2 large units of commodity M380; other lines record 2 large units and 1 smaller unit, and further entries for a commodity designated M297 total 2 large units and, in the final surviving lines, 1 unit plus 3 large units and 2 smaller units. Several lines are broken and their commodities or quantities are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] M346 M081 M036 , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M380 , 2(N30C) [...] , 2(N30C) 1(N30D) M010~2 , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N30C@b)#? M297 , 2(N30C)# [...] M036# M297 , 1(N01) 3(N39B)# [...] [...] , 1(N01) 3(N39B) 2(N30C)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M346 M081 M036 , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M380 , 2(N30C) [...] , 2(N30C) 1(N30D) M010~2 , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N30C@b)#? M297 , 2(N30C)# [...] M036# M297 , 1(N01) 3(N39B)# [...] [...] , 1(N01) 3(N39B) 2(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 207. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008405) — 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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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.