Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4848
About this tablet
A Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the world's earliest writing systems, still undeciphered. It records what appears to be a list of commodities or goods alongside numerical quantities, the standard format of Uruk-period accounting tablets. Because Proto-Elamite script has not been decoded, the specific goods and persons named remain unknown, but the tablet's structure — sign followed by a count — is unmistakably that of an inventory or ration record. It is held in the Louvre and survives in multiple joining or associated fragments.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists a series of items or commodities, each followed by a quantity: one of [unknown item], two of [unknown item], one of [unknown item], four of [unknown item], one compound entry, and so on down to a final entry pairing two more undeciphered signs with an uncertain quantity. Because the script itself has never been deciphered, we cannot name what was being counted — but the format is clear: someone at Susa was keeping careful track of goods, unit by unit. Several lines are too broken to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] (broken) [M029~b], 1 [M369~a], 2 [M072], 1 [...], 4 [M029~b M388 M074~f], 1 [|M377+M377|], [...] [...], 1 [M032], 1 [M223], 1 [x M001 M139], [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
x , [...] M029~b# , 1(N01) M369~a , 2(N01) M072 , 1(N01) [...] , 4(N01)# M029~b M388 M074~f , 1(N01) |M377+M377| , [...] [...] , 1(N01)# M032# , 1(N01)# M223 , 1(N01) x M001 M139 , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4848. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009253) — 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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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.