Position in chronology
MDP 17, 286
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. It records quantities of unidentified commodities against numerical entries using the proto-Elamite sign system, which remains largely undeciphered. The tablet is broken into several fragments — the obverse shows clear impressed wedges and numerical notations, while the reverse is far more worn — and represents the kind of everyday accounting record kept by early urban institutions at Susa. Proto-Elamite tablets like this one are among the very earliest written records from Iran, and their commodity signs remain one of the great unsolved puzzles of ancient Near Eastern studies.
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 listing several different commodities — most of them still unidentified — each against a quantity. The entries read roughly: [commodity lost], quantity 2 (large unit); commodity M002, quantity 1 (large unit); commodity M098 (?), quantity 2 (large unit); a compound entry combining several signs including M388, M219, M352, M315(?), and M297, with the quantity lost; then a partial entry with M288, quantity 1; commodity M096, quantity 1 (smaller unit); commodity group M295–M222–M288, quantity 1. The final line is entirely broken. The rest of the tablet's content is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 2(N39B) M002 , 1(N39B) M098[?] , 2(N39B) M388 M219 M352~o M315[?] M297 [x] , [...] [x] M288 , 1(N01) M096 , 1(N24) M295~p M222[?] M288 , 1(N01) [...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 2(N39B)# M002 , 1(N39B) M098#? , 2(N39B) M388 M219 M352~o M315#? M297 x , [...] x M288 , 1(N01) M096 , 1(N24) M295~p M222#? M288 , 1(N01) [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 286. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008484) — 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.