Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5197
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the earliest writing systems in history, still undeciphered. The tablet records quantities of commodities or goods under a series of sign-categories, typical of the centralized bookkeeping that proto-Elamite scribes used to track livestock, grain, or other institutional resources. It is now broken into multiple fragments, held at the Louvre, and illustrates the remarkable administrative complexity of early urban Susa even before writing could fully express language. The signs and their associated numerals are readable, but the words behind the signs remain unknown.
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 commodity categories — each designated by a sign whose meaning we cannot yet read — alongside their quantities. The entries run roughly: one category with 5 units; another with 8; a third with a larger unit count plus extras; several combined categories with 5, then 1 unit each; a subtotal or heading group; then further entries of 9, smaller units of 2, then 6, then 1, then entries of 11 each, and a final entry of 1. Several lines are too broken to read. The overall picture is a running tally of goods, probably checked against a delivery or storage record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 5(N01) M009 , 8(N01) M376 , [1(N14)?] [...] [...] , 9(N01) 1(N08A) M270~c M009 , 5(N01) M387~c M005~a M032 , 1(N01) |M157+M381| [...] , [...] [...] , 9(N01) M112~c , 2(N30C) M009 , 6(N01) M032 , 1(N01) M292~f , [1(N14)] 1(N01) [...] , [1(N14)] 1(N01) [x] , 1(N01) [x ...] , [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Engine notes
read from photo9 uncertain terms ↓
- M009 — Unidentified proto-cuneiform sign; appears multiple times as a commodity or category heading. Exact referent (grain type, institution, product) not established for Susa corpus at this period.
- M376 — Unidentified proto-cuneiform sign; commodity or institutional reference unclear.
- M270~c — Variant of sign M270; the '~c' indicates a specific graphemic sub-type. Meaning not resolved.
- M387~c, M005~a, M032 — A combination of three signs in one entry; whether this is a compound sign, a title, or a list of three separate items is not clear.
- |M157+M381| — A compound (ligature) sign; M157 alone is an unidentified heading/category sign at Susa. The compound's meaning is unresolved.
- M112~c — Variant of sign M112; commodity or referent unknown in this Susa context.
- M292~f — Variant of sign M292; meaning uncertain.
- N30C — Large impressed circular numeral; its precise value is context-dependent and not fully resolved for this tablet's metrological system.
- 1(N14) — Higher-order numerical unit; in sexagesimal contexts conventionally = 10× N01, but actual value depends on commodity system in use (grain, area, capacity, etc.) — not determinable here.
Reasoning ↓
Visually, the photo shows a heavily fragmented tablet reassembled from multiple pieces, displayed alongside detached edge/rim fragments and what appears to be the reverse or a separate fragment below. The obverse surface (upper composite image) preserves clearly impressed numerical signs — round deep impressions (N01-type) and larger circular impressions (N14/N30C-type) — arranged in rows separated by horizontal rulings, consistent with a proto-cuneiform or proto-Elamite administrative format from Susa. Several pictographic/logographic signs are visible in the upper and middle registers, including what appear to be the characteristic incised outlines of proto-cuneiform commodity signs, but surface erosion, cracks running diagonally across the face, and the fragmentary state make individual sign identification at this resolution unreliable. The right-side edge fragment bears a museum number (Sb 15364) in modern ink, confirming Louvre catalog identity. The lower fragment in the photograph appears to be either the reverse or a non-joining fragment; it bears modern red ink notations and is largely uninscribed or too eroded to read. The transliteration provided uses CDLI proto-cuneiform sign nomenclature (M-numbers and N-numbers), which cannot be individually verified from the photo at this resolution — I can confirm the general layout of numerical entries against commodity signs, but I cannot cross-check specific M-number identifications. No standard transliteration disagreements are detectable, but many signs marked '#' (damaged) and '[...]' (broken) in the transliteration correspond visually to areas of clear surface loss or crack interference. This is a transliteration-supported reading with partial visual confirmation only.
Generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 · prompt 2026-05-12/v4-interpretation · May 16, 2026 · 1939 in / 1226 out tokens
Transliteration
[...] , 5(N01)# M009 , 8(N01) M376 , 1(N14)# [...] [...] , 9(N01)# 1(N08A) M270~c M009# , 5(N01) M387~c# M005~a M032 , 1(N01) |M157+M381| [...] , [...] [...] , 9(N01) M112~c , 2(N30C) M009# , 6(N01) M032 , 1(N01) M292~f , 1(N14)# 1(N01) [...] , 1(N14)# 1(N01) x , 1(N01)# x [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5197. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009297) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.