Position in chronology
MDP 17, 218
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE — and written in the largely undeciphered proto-Elamite script. It records quantities of one or more commodities against numerical notations, in the format typical of early accountancy: a commodity sign on the left, a number on the right. The tablet is heavily damaged and broken into several fragments, making specific identification of the goods or the responsible officials impossible. It belongs to the earliest horizon of written record-keeping in human history, contemporary with the first Sumerian tablets from southern Iraq.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several entries, each pairing an unreadable commodity designation with a quantity. One entry records a count of 1 (N01); another records 1 (N39B); a further entry combines signs for an unidentified commodity with a total of 1 (N39B) and 2 (N30C); another line records a quantity of 1 (N24). The commodity signs throughout are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered. Much of the text is too damaged or broken to read, and the rest of the entries are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our enginex [sign] M010~2, 1(N01) x M099 x [...], [...] [...], 1(N39B) M124 M009 M338~b(?) M010~2, 1(N39B) M002(?), 1(N39B) 2(N30C) x M377 M099 M096 M010~2, 1(N24)(?) M124(?) M218 M295(?) [...], [...] [...], 1(N01) M206~d(?), [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
x M010~2# , 1(N01)# x M099# x [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N39B) M124 M009 M338~b#? M010~2 , 1(N39B) M002# , 1(N39B)# 2(N30C)# x M377# M099# M096 M010~2 , 1(N24)# M124#? M218 M295# [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M206~d# , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 218. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008416) — 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.