Position in chronology
MDP 17, 467
About this tablet
A small, heavily fragmented proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dated to the Uruk period (roughly 3100–2900 BCE). It records quantities of one or more undeciphered commodity categories using the standard proto-Elamite numerical notation — circular and wedge impressions representing units and higher-order values. Proto-Elamite is the earliest writing system of the Iranian plateau, closely related in accounting practice to the Uruk-period tablets of Mesopotamia, but the script itself remains undeciphered: the sign values for the commodity classifiers are unknown. This tablet is interesting as a remnant of one of the world's earliest bureaucratic traditions — a counting exercise whose exact subject we cannot yet read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet records one or more quantities of goods under an unreadable category heading. Surviving entries show: one unit of something under a heading combining two signs (M175+M153); a second entry with M124 and M243~aa followed by a broken quantity; a third entry with an uncertain sign and one small unit; a fourth entry with M243~aa and one larger unit; then a line showing three small units and two larger units; and finally a single high-value unit (N34, probably representing 10 or a higher denomination). The commodity being counted and the institutional context cannot be recovered from the surviving signs.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine|M175+M153| , M124 M243~aa [...] , [...] [...] M301~g , 1(N01@b) M243~aa , 1(N39B@b) [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N34)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
|M175+M153| , M124 M243~aa [...] , [...] [...] M301~g , 1(N01@b) M243~aa , 1(N39B@b) [...] [...] , [...] 3(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 467. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008665) — 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.