Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5218
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwest Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — one of the very earliest administrative writing systems in the world. The tablet records quantities of commodities or goods against a series of as-yet-undeciphered category signs, culminating in what appears to be a summary or total line. Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered: we can read the numerical notations clearly, but the commodity signs themselves cannot be translated into meaningful words. What survives is the skeleton of an ancient institution's bookkeeping — quantities tallied, categories noted — but its specific subject matter, whether livestock, grain, or craft goods, cannot be determined with current knowledge.
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 followed by a quantity — mostly single units, with a few entries recording two units in a larger denomination. The final legible line records a significantly larger number, likely a cumulative total. Several entries and signs at the beginning and end of the tablet are too damaged to read. Because proto-Elamite writing has not been deciphered, the specific goods or categories being counted remain unknown — only the numbers and the structural logic of the accounting survive.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] [...] M388 M146 M377~e M347 M371 M054 , 1(N01) M032[?] , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M054 , 1(N01) M373 , 2(N01) M046 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01)[?] M033 , 2(N14) M376 M124 , 2(N14) M072 , [...] M288[?] , 1(N45) 3(N14) 4(N39B) [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] M388 M146 M377~e M347 M371 M054 , 1(N01) M032# , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M054 , 1(N01) M373 , 2(N01) M046 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01)# M033 , 2(N14) M376 M124 , 2(N14) M072 , [...] M288# , 1(N45) 3(N14) 4(N39B) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5218. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009318) — 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.