Position in chronology
MDP 17, 449
About this tablet
A small, heavily damaged administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in what is now southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3300–3000 BCE. It is written in proto-Elamite, one of the world's earliest undeciphered writing systems, and records quantities of some commodity or commodities under administrative headings whose meaning cannot currently be read. The numerical signs — the clearest element of proto-Elamite — indicate tallies of goods, probably livestock or grain rations, processed through a temple or palace institution. This tablet is a small piece of the vast early bureaucratic apparatus that made the world's first cities function.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records a series of counts against administrative headings that we cannot yet read. The figures visible in the first entry amount to a moderately large quantity; the second and subsequent entries show smaller amounts, with portions broken away. The heading or category sign at the top remains undeciphered. What survives is essentially an ancient accountant's running tally — quantities recorded, organized, and filed — but the goods being counted and the institution behind the record are still beyond our understanding.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLine 1: [M288~f] — 1(N34) 4(N14)# [...] Line 2: [...] — [...] 1(N30C@b)# 1(N30D@b)# Line 3: [M157~a] — 1(N14)# [...] Line 4: [...] — [...] 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N30D)#
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M288~f , 1(N34) 4(N14)# [...] [...] , [...] 1(N30C@b)# 1(N30D@b)# M157~a , 1(N14)# [...] [...] , [...] 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N30D)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 449. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008647) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.