Position in chronology
MDP 17, 419
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwest Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the very earliest accounting documents in human history. It records a list of commodity entries, each paired with a small numeral, culminating in a total. The signs are Proto-Elamite, a script that remains largely undeciphered: we can read the numbers and identify the sign forms, but we cannot yet translate the commodity names into any known language. Tablets like this one were the bureaucratic backbone of an early urban economy, tracking goods — perhaps livestock, grain, or craft products — passing through an institutional storehouse.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A heading sign opens the document, then twelve lines follow, each naming a category of goods alongside a quantity — mostly 2 units each, with a few entries of 1 or 4. The list closes with a grand total: 4 large units and 3 small units. The commodity names themselves remain untranslatable; what survives is the skeleton of an ancient inventory — a careful official tallying up what came in or went out, category by category, and confirming the sum at the bottom.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157] [M124] [M288] — 2 [M175+M286] — 2 [M265] — 2 [M081] — 2 [M001] — 4 [M134~b] — 2 [M041] — 2 [M317~a] — 1 [M005~a?] — 2 [M111~o] — 2 [M316~f] — 2 [M385~f] — 4 Total: 4(N14@c) 3(N01@c)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157# , M124 M288 , 2(N01) |M175+M286| , 2(N01) M265 , 2(N01) M081 , 2(N01) M001 , 4(N01) M134~b , 2(N01) M041 , 2(N01) M317~a , 1(N01) M005~a? , 2(N01) M111~o , 2(N01) M316~f , 2(N01) M385~f , 4(N01) , 4(N14@c) 3(N01@c)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 419. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008617) — 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.