Position in chronology
MDP 17, 381
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3300–3000 BCE), now held in the Louvre as Sb 22535. It records numerical quantities assigned to undeciphered commodity or category signs — the standard format of proto-Elamite administrative bookkeeping. Because proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, we can read the numerals but not the words: we can see that quantities are being tallied, but not what goods or persons are involved. This tablet is a vivid reminder that the world's second-oldest writing system — used across ancient Iran for at least two centuries — still has not yielded its secrets.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists a series of commodity or category entries, each paired with numerical quantities. One entry records 3 units of one type; another records a category sign (M288) with a total of 1 large unit, 4 medium units, and 2 small units (with part of the line broken away). A further line gives 1 medium unit, 3 small units, and some fractional amounts. The goods being counted and the headings labeling them cannot be read — the script remains undeciphered — but the numerical accounting structure is clear. Several lines are too damaged or broken to recover.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 3(N14@b) M263~1 × [...] , [...] [...] , 3(N14) M153 M068~a [...] , [...] M288 , 1(N45) 4(N14) 2(N01)# [...] [...] , 1(N14) 3(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N14@b) 1(N01@b)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 3(N14@b) M263~1 x [...] , [...] [...] , 3(N14) M153 M068~a [...] , [...] M288 , 1(N45) 4(N14) 2(N01)# [...] [...] , 1(N14) 3(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N14@b) 1(N01@b)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 381. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008579) — 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.