Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4782
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa, ancient southwestern Iran, dating to the Uruk period (roughly 3200–3000 BCE). It records quantities of an unidentified commodity — the signs that name it remain undeciphered — distributed or accounted across several entries, with a final numerical total. Proto-Elamite is the world's most extensive undeciphered writing system, used for economic record-keeping at Susa and related sites, and this small tablet is a typical example of its bureaucratic output. Because the script has never been fully decoded, we can read the numbers but not the words.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists several lots of an unidentified commodity, each associated with a quantity expressed in the proto-Elamite numerical system — two entries at roughly equal amounts, a third variant entry, and one smaller entry. A sign that appears throughout (M288) may mark the commodity type or serve as a structural element. The final line records what is likely a grand total. The rest is, for now, unreadable: the script that names the goods and the parties involved has never been deciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157~a] M387~a + M036 : 1(N39B) 1(N30C)[?] M387 + M036 : 1(N39B) 1(N30C) M387~ef + M036 : 1(N39B) 1(N30C) [M260~1+1(N24)][?] : 1(N01) M288 : 3(N39B) 1(N24) 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~a , M387~a M036 , 1(N39B) 1(N30C)#? M387# M036# , 1(N39B) 1(N30C) M387~ef M036 , 1(N39B) 1(N30C) |M260~1+1(N24)|# , 1(N01) M288 , 3(N39B) 1(N24) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4782. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009219) — 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.