Position in chronology
MDP 17, 300
About this tablet
A heavily fragmented Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3200–2900 BCE). It records quantities of one or more unidentified commodities using the distinctive Proto-Elamite numerical notation — round and wedge impressions made with a stylus — alongside undeciphered sign-sequences that likely name commodities or categories. Proto-Elamite tablets like this one are among the earliest administrative records in the world, preceding the full development of writing, and despite over a century of study the commodity signs remain undeciphered. This particular tablet survives in several joining or associated fragments, photographed here laid out together, and its content is too damaged to reconstruct a complete transaction.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet is too broken to read as a continuous account. What survives records at least two numerical entries: a larger quantity combining one unit of type N14 and one of type N39B, and a second entry of eleven units (nine plus two) associated with the sign group M297~b. A compound sign sequence — M139, M048~d, M288 — appears in one line, probably naming a commodity or administrative category. A further partial entry shows three units of something. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 1(N14) 1(N39B) M139 M048~d M288 , [...] M297~b , 9(N01) 2(N01)[?] [...] x [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01)[?] [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 1(N14) 1(N39B) M139 M048~d M288 , [...] M297~b# , 9(N01) 2(N01)# [...] x [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01)# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 300. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008498) — 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.