Position in chronology
MDP 17, 339
About this tablet
A badly damaged proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa, probably dating to around 3100–2900 BCE, preserved in several joining and non-joining fragments now held at the Louvre. Like thousands of similar tablets from Susa, it records quantities of commodities — the specific goods are unidentifiable because proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered — organized in the characteristic format of an entry sign followed by a numerical notation. The numerical signs include N01 units (small counts, likely individual items) and at least one N14 unit (a larger quantity: 4 N14 here, possibly equivalent to a higher-order count). This is the routine administrative bookkeeping of an early complex society in southwestern Iran, before writing was fully capable of recording language.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records several entries of goods or commodities whose names we cannot yet read, each followed by a quantity. Two entries each note a count of 1 (in the smaller N01 unit); one entry records 4 in the larger N14 unit. Several lines are too broken to read at all, and the signs identifying the commodities throughout remain undeciphered. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] M081 M387~l [x] M376 , [...] [...] M376 , 1(N01) M054~b [x] [...] , [...] [...] M376 , 1(N01) M388 [x] , 4(N14) [...] M136~a [x] M376 , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] M081 M387~l x M376# , [...] [...] M376 , 1(N01) M054~b x [...] , [...] [...] M376# , 1(N01) M388 x , 4(N14)# [...] M136~a x M376 , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 339. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008537) — 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.