Position in chronology
MDP 17, 281
About this tablet
A small Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest writing systems ever used, and still largely undeciphered. Each line records a combination of undeciphered commodity signs followed by the numeral 1 (written as one impressed circle, N01), with a final line totalling 6 units. This is the kind of everyday bookkeeping tablet that administrators at Susa used to track goods, animals, or materials passing through an institutional storehouse. The reverse is uninscribed or blank, and the tablet is held in the Louvre under museum number Sb 22442.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet is a tally of six entries, each recording one unit of some commodity or category (the signs for the goods themselves remain undeciphered). Six individual line-items, each worth 1 unit, are listed on the front face, and the final entry confirms the total: 6. The specific goods being counted cannot be read — the writing system has not yet been fully deciphered — but the bookkeeping logic is clear: this is a summary account of six discrete items, probably goods received or disbursed at an administrative centre in ancient Susa.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] x, M001 M259 M218(?) M278~e, 1(N01) M195~m M220 M218 x [...], 1(N01) M152 M097~h(?) M387 M387 M377 M295(?) M096(?) M066, 1(N01) |M296+M296|(?) M263~1 x M096 [...], 1(N01) M066~a M057, 1(N01) M263~1(?) x [...] M066~a, 1(N01) [...], 6(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 , M001 M259 M218# M278~e , 1(N01) M195~m M220 M218 x [...] , 1(N01) M152 M097~h# M387 M387 M377 M295# M096#? M066 , 1(N01) |M296+M296|# M263~1 x M096 [...] , 1(N01) M066~a M057 , 1(N01) M263~1#? x [...] M066~a , 1(N01) [...] , 6(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 281. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008479) — 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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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.