Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4762
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to roughly 3200–2900 BCE — among the very earliest writing ever produced by human hands. Like most Proto-Elamite tablets, it records quantities of commodities under category signs whose sounds and meanings remain undeciphered to this day. Each line pairs one or more commodity or category signs with a numeral, following the structured bookkeeping format that scribes at Susa used to manage temple or palace resources. The tablet is fragmentary and heavily damaged, but its columnar layout of signs and numbers is unmistakably that of an institutional ledger.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A damaged administrative record listing several commodity categories — each identified by signs we cannot yet read — alongside their quantities. One entry records 3 units of something under a category we call M054; another records 1 unit under M001 and 1 larger unit in a different denomination; a third records 1 large unit under M354. The entries continue in similar fashion, with quantities ranging from 1 to 2 units in various denominations. The final line records a single large-denomination number (N34). Several lines are too broken to read, and the commodities themselves remain undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric sign] [...] M054(?), 3(N01) M001, 1(N01) [x], 1(N39B) M354, 1(N14) M340 M054(?), [...] [...], 2(N01) M354, 2(N01) M387~l M001, 1(N01) [x] [...], [...] M297~b, 1(N39B) M354, [...] M387 [x] M354, 2(N01) M341(?), [...] 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
M157 , [...] M054#? , 3(N01)# M001 , 1(N01) x , 1(N39B) M354 , 1(N14) M340 M054# , [...] [...] , 2(N01) M354 , 2(N01) M387~l M001 , 1(N01) x [...] , [...] M297~b , 1(N39B) M354 , [...] M387 x M354 , 2(N01) M341# , [...] 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4762. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009200) — 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.