Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4755
About this tablet
A Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the world's earliest writing systems, still undeciphered. The tablet records quantities of several different commodities against what appear to be classifier signs, culminating in a grand total at the bottom. It is a bookkeeping document: someone at a Susian administrative centre was tracking the receipt or disbursement of multiple goods, each measured in a hierarchical numerical system of large and small units. Proto-Elamite tablets like this one are tantalising evidence of a complex ancient economy that predates any readable text — we can count the numbers but cannot yet name what was being counted.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an accounting record. Under an opening heading whose meaning is unknown, the scribe lists a series of commodities — each identified by signs we cannot yet read — along with their quantities in a mixed large-and-small-unit system (something like dozens and single units). The individual entries run: 7 units of one commodity; 1 large + 2 small of another; 3 small of another; 3 large of another; and so on through roughly ten line entries, several of which are now broken. The tablet closes with a grand total of one high-denomination unit. The commodity names and the nature of the goods remain unknown because Proto-Elamite has not been deciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157] [Commodity M144 + classifier M388]: 7 (units, small measure) [Commodity |M288+1(N39B)|]: 1 (large unit) 2 (small units) [...] [M288]: 3 (small units) [Commodity M382~f]: 3 (large units) [M288]: 1 (small unit) [...] [M288]: 1 (large unit) 4 (small units) [Commodity M305 M305 + classifier M001]: 1 (large unit) [...] [M288]: 1 (small unit) [Commodity M209~d + classifier M001]: 1 (large unit) [M288]: 1 (large unit) [...] [Commodity M249~c]: 2 (small units) [...]: [...] 2 (large units) 2 (small units) [Grand total:] 1 (N34 unit)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M144 M388 , 7(N01) |M288+1(N39B)| , 1(N01) 2(N39B) [...] M288 , 3(N39B) M382~f , 3(N01) M288 , 1(N39B) [...] M288 , 1(N01) 4(N39B) M305 M305 M001 , 1(N01) [...] M288 , 1(N39B) M209~d# M001 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01) [...] M249~c , 2(N39B) [...] , [...] 2(N01)# 2(N39B) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4755. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009193) — 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.