Position in chronology
MDP 31, 015
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. It records quantities of commodities — the exact nature of those commodities is unknown, since proto-Elamite writing has never been deciphered — organized under a heading sign and tabulated in columns with numerical values using the standard proto-Elamite numeral system. Tablets like this one were the administrative paperwork of one of the world's earliest urban bureaucracies, tracking goods through institutional storehouses or redistribution centers. It is interesting precisely because it is so close to the origin of writing itself, yet its content remains stubbornly opaque to modern scholars.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet opens with a heading or category marker of unknown meaning, then lists several entries — each pairing one or more commodity signs with a quantity. The entries record values like 2 small units, 1 large unit, 2 large units, 2 large units again, 2 small units, and 6 small units. A final line with 1 small unit may be a subtotal or remainder. What exactly is being counted remains unknown: the signs used here have not been deciphered, and we can read the numbers but not the words.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric sign] , M305 M033~c M270~d , 2(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 1(N14) M387~ca |M036+1(N30C)| , 2(N14) M305 M387~ha |M036+1(N30C)| , 2(N14) M340 M054 M265~2 , 2(N01)[?] [damaged sign] |M036+1(N30D)| , 6(N01) 1(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M157 , M305 M033~c# M270~d# , 2(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 1(N14) M387~ca |M036+1(N30C)| , 2(N14) M305 M387~ha |M036+1(N30C)| , 2(N14) M340 M054# M265~2# , 2(N01)# [x] |M036+1(N30D)| , 6(N01) 1(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 31, 015. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009355) — 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.