Position in chronology
MDP 17, 466
About this tablet
A small proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa, dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE, now held at the Louvre (Sb 22608). It records quantities of several commodities or categories — each identified by an undeciphered sign — expressed in the proto-Elamite numerical system. The tablet is broken and damaged, with several entries partially lost, but the surviving entries pair commodity signs with counts in the range of 1–17 units. Proto-Elamite is the world's most extensively attested undeciphered writing system, and tablets like this one — pure accounting records — represent the earliest administrative bureaucracy of the ancient Iranian plateau.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A damaged accounting record listing several commodities (all of unknown identity, since proto-Elamite remains undeciphered) against their quantities: one entry records 17 units, another at least 14 units, one entry 6 units, another 15 units, one 14 units, one 2 units, and a final entry 3 units. Several lines are broken and their commodity signs are lost. The rest is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 1(N14) 7(N01) |M136+M195~d|# , 1(N14)# [...] , 6(N01) M383~c , 1(N14) 5(N01) M054~b , 1(N14) [...] , 2(N01) M365 , 3(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 1(N14)# 7(N01) |M136+M195~d|# , 1(N14)# [...] , 6(N01) M383~c , 1(N14) 5(N01) M054~b , 1(N14) [...] , 2(N01) M365 , 3(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 466. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008664) — 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.