Position in chronology
MDP 17, 266
About this tablet
A heavily fragmented Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3200–2900 BCE. Proto-Elamite is an undeciphered script, so individual sign values cannot be rendered into words; what survives is a set of commodity or category signs paired with numerical notations, the standard format for inventory or rationing records at this period. The tablet belongs to the earliest layer of recorded human administration — bookkeeping before writing had a phonetic dimension — and is now held in the Louvre. Its extreme fragmentation limits interpretation, but the structured layout of sign + number is unmistakable.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet is too fragmentary and in an undeciphered script for a meaningful modern paraphrase of its content. What can be said is that it records a list of categorized quantities: one entry notes 4 units of something classified by sign M038~b/M374~c; another records 11 units (1 N14 + 1 N01) under a damaged classifier; another line shows 2 N39B + 1 N24 in an unknown category; and a final numerical entry of 1 N34 may represent a total or sub-total. The commodity names behind all the classifiers remain unknown. The rest of the text is too damaged or broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Sign M005~a] , [Sign M038~b] [Sign M374~c] , 4(N01) [Sign M288(#)] , [...] [...] [Sign M346] [Sign M001~b] [Sign M034~a] |M305+M009| [Sign M288(#)] , [...] [...] [Sign M424(#)] , 1(N14) 1(N01) [...] , [...] 2(N39B) 1(N24) 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
M005~a , M038~b M374~c , 4(N01) M288# , [...] [...] M346 M001~b M034~a |M305+M009| M288# , [...] [...] M424# , 1(N14) 1(N01) [...] , [...] 2(N39B) 1(N24) 1(N34)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 266. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008464) — 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.