Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4790
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (in modern Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3100–2900 BCE. Proto-Elamite is one of the world's earliest writing systems and remains undeciphered: the signs record quantities of commodities or categories of goods under what appear to be institutional headings, but we cannot yet read the underlying language. The tablet is a small accounting document — rows of commodity signs paired with numerals in the standard proto-Elamite notation system — the kind of record kept by a temple or palace storeroom official tracking receipts or distributions. Its interest lies precisely in this opacity: it is genuine writing, genuine bookkeeping, from one of humanity's first literate bureaucracies, yet the words it encodes are still beyond us.
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 or category marker whose meaning is unknown. What follows is a series of entries, each pairing one or more commodity or category signs — none of which can yet be read in any language — with numerical quantities: one large unit here, five standard units there, repeated across at least nine entries in a structured accounting format. The final line records a compound quantity (one unit of one denomination, two of another, two of a third, one of a fourth, one of a fifth) followed by a single large-denomination numeral. The middle portion of the tablet is badly damaged and several entries are lost or only partially preserved.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric: M157~a] [Classifier M305], (damaged sign) — 1(N14) [M096] [M112] [M136~c] [M263~b1] — 1(N01) [M305] [...] [M260] — 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| — 5(N01) [M111~b] [M388] [...] — [...] |M036+1(N30D)| — 5(N01) (damaged) [...] — [...] |M036+1(N30D)| — 5(N01) [...] — [...] (damaged) |M036+1(N30D)|[?] — 1(N01)[?] (damaged sign) — 1(N01) [M297] — 1(N01), 2(N39B), 2(N30C), 1(N30D), 1(N39C) 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# , M305# x , 1(N14) M096# M112 M136~c M263~b1 , 1(N01) M305# [...] M260 , 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) M111~b M388 [...] , [...] |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) x [...] , [...] |M036+1(N30D)|# , 5(N01) [...] , [...] x |M036+1(N30D)|# , 1(N01)#? x , 1(N01)# M297 , 1(N01) 2(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4790. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009227) — 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.