Position in chronology
MDP 17, 279
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa, ancient southwestern Iran, dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3200–2900 BCE). It records quantities of unidentified commodities — each line pairing one or more sign groups with a numerical notation — in the characteristic format of early administrative bookkeeping. Proto-Elamite is the world's most widespread early writing system and remains undeciphered: the signs cannot yet be read phonetically, so only the numerical values and the general accounting structure are intelligible. This tablet is a small piece of the vast bureaucratic machinery that managed goods and labor at one of the ancient Near East's earliest urban centers.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet lists a series of commodity entries, each followed by a count: three units of one item, two of another, one unit of two further items, three of another, and so on. A larger subtotal line near the end records nine units of a higher-denomination measure plus smaller fractions. The specific goods being counted cannot be identified because the writing system has not been deciphered. Most of the entries are damaged or broken, and several sign groups remain unreadable.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] M066 M096, 3(N01) M203~c M066 M352~o M131~d [...], [...] [...], 2(N01) M388 M315 M263~1 M297, 2(N01) [x x] [...], [...] [...] |M296+M296| M096, 2(N01) M254 M352~n M218 [...], [...] [...] x M371, 1(N01) M124 M057 M099 M371, 1(N01) [...] M240 M096, 3(N01) x, 3(N01) M311 M314 [...], [...] [...], 2(N39B) 1(N24) M066 [...] M218 M066, 2(N39B) [...], 9(N14) 1(N39B) 1(N24)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M066 M096# , 3(N01) M203~c M066 M352~o# M131~d# [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N01)# M388 M315 M263~1 M297 , 2(N01) x x [...] , [...] [...] |M296+M296| M096 , 2(N01) M254# M352~n M218#? [...] , [...] [...] x M371# , 1(N01) M124 M057 M099 M371 , 1(N01) [...] M240# M096 , 3(N01)# x , 3(N01) M311 M314 [...] , [...] [...] , 2(N39B)# 1(N24) M066 [...] M218 M066 , 2(N39B) [...] , 9(N14)# 1(N39B) 1(N24)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 279. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008477) — 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.