Position in chronology
MDP 17, 285
About this tablet
A Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest writing systems ever used, and one that remains undeciphered to this day. The tablet records quantities of two or three different commodities or commodity categories, each paired with numerical notations using the standard Proto-Elamite counting system. Tablets like this were produced by administrators tracking goods — likely livestock, grain, or manufactured products — flowing through an early urban institution. Despite a century of scholarly effort, Proto-Elamite signs have not been fully decoded, so we can read the numbers but not the words.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a damaged accounting record. It lists at least two distinct commodity types (here called M006 and M362), each with quantities: M006 appears twice — once with a count of 3 and once with a count of 2; M362 appears twice as well — once tallying 4 large units and once tallying 1 large unit plus 3 small units. A third category (M346) has a count of 2, and M101 has a count of 1. The beginning and end of the tablet are broken away, and at least one entry is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...], M006[?], 3 M362, 4 × N14 [...], 2 M006, 2 M362~a, 1 × N14 + 3 M346, 2 M101, 1 [x], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , M006# , 3(N01)# M362# , 4(N14)# [...] , 2(N01) M006 , 2(N01) M362~a , 1(N14) 3(N01) M346 , 2(N01)# M101 , 1(N01) x , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 285. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008483) — 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.