Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4795
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, around 3200–3000 BCE. It is written in Proto-Elamite, one of the world's earliest writing systems, which remains undeciphered — we can read the numerical signs but not the commodity or category signs beside them. The tablet records quantities of goods or animals against a series of category signs, the classic format of early institutional bookkeeping. It is a fragment of the bureaucratic machinery that managed redistributive economies at early urban centers in southwestern Iran.
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 unknown. It then lists several categories of commodities or items — each identified by signs we cannot yet read — paired with numerical quantities (expressed in the Proto-Elamite counting system). One entry records a quantity under a compound sign grouping. The reverse is blank or too damaged to read. The rest of the text is either broken away or illegible.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineLine 1: [M157# — heading/rubric sign, partially preserved] Line 2: M304 M146~d M383~n M151~c — 1(N30C) 1(N30D) Line 3: M033# — 1(N30C) 1(N30D)# Line 4: [x] — 1(N30C)# 1(N30D) Line 5: M111~n M218? |M036+1(N30D)| — 1(N14) Line 6: M219 [x] — 1(N30C) 1(N30D) Line 7: [illegible/lost]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157# , M304 M146~d M383~n M151~c , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M033# , 1(N30C) 1(N30D)# [x] , 1(N30C)# 1(N30D) M111~n M218? |M036+1(N30D)| , 1(N14) M219 [x] , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4795. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009231) — 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.