Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4776
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern southwestern Iran), dating to the late fourth or early third millennium BCE — roughly contemporary with the earliest writing in Mesopotamia. It is a list of commodity entries, each paired with the numeral '2' repeated across multiple lines, suggesting a tally of goods, animals, or rations distributed or received under some institutional heading. The sign at the top (M157) likely functions as a document-type classifier or category rubric, telling the reader what kind of account follows, though Proto-Elamite script remains largely undeciphered. Tablets like this are among the earliest written records on Earth, produced by a bureaucratic culture that was tracking goods across a complex economy — the paperwork of one of humanity's first administrative states.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet opens with a heading sign whose meaning is not yet known. What follows is a tally: several entries, each recording commodity signs — also not yet fully deciphered — paired consistently with the number 2. The pattern repeats across roughly nine lines, with some lines too damaged to read fully. In modern terms, this looks like a ledger page: a list of items, each recorded in a quantity of two, probably goods received, issued, or accounted for within some institutional or temple storehouse. Several lines are broken and the signs cannot be recovered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] M005~a M213~b M346 , 2(N01) M005~a [x] [...] , [2(N01)] [...] , 2(N01) M249~c M001 , 2(N01) M131# M388# [...] , 2(N01) [...] M388 M260~1 M260~1 , 2(N01) M075~ab [...] [M346] , [...] 2(N01) 2(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M005~a# M213~b M346 , 2(N01) M005~a x [...] , [2(N01)] [...] , 2(N01) M249~c M001 , 2(N01) M131# M388# [...] , 2(N01) [...] M388 M260~1 M260~1 , 2(N01) M075~ab [...] [M346] , [...] 2(N01) 2(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4776. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009213) — 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.