Position in chronology
MDP 17, 458
About this tablet
This is a fragment of a Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the earliest writing anywhere in the world. The tablet records quantities of commodities or categories designated by signs whose meanings remain undeciphered: Proto-Elamite script has not been 'read' in the way that Sumerian or Akkadian have. What survives are numerical entries against a series of pictographic signs, suggesting a tally of goods, animals, or personnel managed by an administrative institution at Susa. It is historically significant as evidence that complex record-keeping and proto-writing developed independently in southwest Iran at almost exactly the same time as in Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several categories of goods or commodities — their exact nature unknown — each followed by a count. One entry records 80 units of something; another records 12; one extraordinary entry reaches at least 3,644 units. Several lines are too broken or undeciphered to read. The signs labeling these categories are in Proto-Elamite, a script that still cannot be translated — so we know the numbers, but not what is being counted.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 7 [M346~1] , 1×60 + 2×10 (= 80) [x] , 1 [M101] , 1×10 + 2 (= 12) [M009] , 2×10 [+ ...] [...] , 1×3600 + 4×10 + 4 (= 3,644) [...] [...] , 3 [M054?] , [...] [...] , 3
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 7(N01)# M346~1 , 1(N23) 2(N14) x , 1(N01)# M101# , 1(N14) 2(N01) M009 , 2(N14)# [...] [...] , 1(N34) 4(N14) 4(N01)# [...] [...] , 3(N01) M054#? , [...] [...] , 3(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 458. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008656) — 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.