Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5223
About this tablet
A small proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3200–3000 BCE. It records quantities of one or more unidentified commodities against a set of numerical notations using the proto-Elamite numerical system. Proto-Elamite is the world's second-oldest writing system and remains undeciphered: the sign values are unknown and the language behind them is unidentified. This tablet is a fragment of the administrative paperwork of one of the earliest urban economies, kept by officials who ran large-scale redistribution of goods at the city of Susa.
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 or category marker whose meaning is lost to us. The surviving entries record one or more unidentified commodities — the signs that would name them are either broken away or still undeciphered — alongside numerical totals: amounts expressed in units that scholars label N14, N24, N30D, and N34. The rest is too damaged or broken to read. In essence, this is a ledger entry: someone counted something, wrote down the numbers, and filed the record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Heading/rubric sign M157~a] x , [...] [...] M384~d M297 , [...] [...] , 1(N14) 1(N14@b) x [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N24) 1(N24@b) 2(N30D@b) 1(N34)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157~a , x , [...] [...] M384~d M297 , [...] [...] , 1(N14) 1(N14@b) x [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N24) 1(N24@b) 2(N30D@b) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5223. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009322) — 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.