Position in chronology
MDP 17, 344
About this tablet
A Proto-Elamite numerical tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period — among the very earliest administrative records in human history. It records quantities of an unknown commodity or commodities using the Proto-Elamite numerical system, where different number signs denote different orders of magnitude in what appears to be a sexagesimal or bisexagesimal counting system. The commodity signs (M009, M388) cannot be resolved into known words, as Proto-Elamite script has not been fully deciphered. Tablets like this were the basic bookkeeping tools of a large redistributive economy at ancient Susa, tracking goods flowing through an institutional centre.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a broken ledger entry — a count of some commodity or commodities recorded by a temple or palace administrator at Susa roughly 5,000 years ago. The first line records a total in the high hundreds or low thousands (exact commodity unknown). The second line is too damaged to read fully, but records a sub-total of two units of a mid-range denomination. The third line may open with a category heading before giving a small quantity. The fourth line records another large total. The commodity being counted and the institutional purpose remain unknown — the script has not been fully deciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 1(N34) 1(N45) 3(N14) 3(N01) [...] , [...] 2(N14@b) [M009?] [M388?] , 1(N39B)? [...] [...] , 1(N34) 1(N45) 4(N14) 1(N01) 3(N39B)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 1(N34) 1(N45) 3(N14) 3(N01) [...] , [...] 2(N14@b) M009? M388? , 1(N39B)? [...] [...] , 1(N34) 1(N45) 4(N14) 1(N01) 3(N39B)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 344. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008542) — 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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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.