Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5212
About this tablet
A small administrative tablet from ancient Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — among the very earliest phases of writing, roughly 3300–3000 BCE. The tablet records quantities of one or more commodities using the proto-cuneiform numerical system, in which different shaped impressions (circles, crescents, small and large marks) represent different units of count or measure. The repeated sign M288 appears on almost every line, probably functioning as a category label or commodity classifier separating entries. Though the tablet is too damaged and its signs too archaic to yield a precise commodity name, it represents the kind of meticulous accounting — tracking goods through a redistributive administration — that drove the invention of writing itself.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Each line records a category marker (sign M288, identity unclear) followed by a quantity: one unit here, then two large units and five medium units somewhere else, then two large, one extra-large, five medium, and four small units in another entry, and finally — where readable — seven large units and five medium units in the last surviving line. Several lines are broken and their full quantities are lost. This is a ledger of counted goods, most likely tracked by a temple or palace storehouse.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] |M106~2+M288|, 1(N02) M288, 2(N34) 5(N14) [...] [|M106~2+M288|], [1(N02)] [M288], 2(N34) 1(N45) 5(N14) 4(N01) [...], [...] 7(N34) 5(N14) [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] |M106~2+M288| , 1(N02) M288 , 2(N34)# 5(N14)# [...] [|M106~2+M288|] , [1(N02)] [M288] , 2(N34)# 1(N45) 5(N14) 4(N01) [...] , [...] 7(N34)# 5(N14) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5212. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009312) — 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.