Position in chronology
MDP 17, 433
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. Proto-Elamite is the earliest writing system used in Iran, and its signs remain largely undeciphered — we can read the numerals but not the commodity words. The tablet records quantities of unknown commodities under a heading sign, almost certainly as part of an institutional accounting system tracking goods distributed or received. It is one of thousands of such tablets from Susa that give us a window into the complex bureaucratic economy of early urban Iran, even though the language behind the script is still not understood.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a heading or document-type marker. What follows is a series of entries, each pairing one or more unreadable commodity signs with numerical quantities: one entry records 3 units of something alongside signs M387 and M218; another records 2 large units plus 4 smaller units beside a compound sign grouping; a further line records 3 large units against signs M388, M037, M102~k1, M218~b, and M066; and a final partial entry notes 5 units. Several lines are broken and cannot be read. The rest of the content is lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] [M195+M038~a] M301(?) M056~f M206~d1(?) x [...] x M066(?) M024(?) M001 x M387 M218 , 3(N01) M195~d x [...] , [...] [...] |M377+M320+M377|(?) , 2(N14) 4(N01) M097~h(?) M066(?) x [...] , [...] M388 M037 M102~k1 M218~b M066 , 3(N14) x [...] , 5(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , |M195+M038~a|# M301#? M056~f M206~d1# x , [...] x M066#? M024#? M001# x M387 M218 , 3(N01) M195~d x [...] , [...] [...] |M377+M320+M377|# , 2(N14) 4(N01) M097~h#? M066# x [...] , [...] M388 M037 M102~k1 M218~b M066 , 3(N14)# x [...] , 5(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 433. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008631) — 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.