Position in chronology
MDP 31, 019
About this tablet
An administrative accounting tablet from ancient Susa (in modern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–3000 BCE — among the very earliest writing in human history. The tablet records quantities of commodities or animals assigned to a series of undeciphered proto-Elamite categories, each entry pairing a sign (the commodity or institutional class) with a numerical notation. Proto-Elamite writing has not yet been deciphered, so the specific goods and their recipients remain unknown, but the numerical system is well understood. Tablets like this one represent the earliest bureaucratic record-keeping — the administrative machinery of a complex urban society tracking resources before fully readable writing had been invented.
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 entries, each pairing an unreadable category sign with a quantity. The first entry records one large unit of something (M059). The second records four small units under a different category (M252~i). Then follow five more single large-unit entries under categories M136~k, M210~b, an unknown sign, another unreadable sign, and M147. The final entry, partially broken, tallies six large units and four small units under a category now lost in the damaged portion. The signs that name the commodities or institutional categories cannot yet be read — the language behind them remains undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM059 — 1(N14) M252~i — 4(N01) M136~k — 1(N14) M210~b — 1(N14) [...] — 1(N14) x — 1(N14) M147 — 1(N14) [...] — 6(N14) 4(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M059 , 1(N14) M252~i# , 4(N01) M136~k , 1(N14) M210~b , 1(N14) [...] , 1(N14) x , 1(N14) M147 , 1(N14) [...] , 6(N14) 4(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 31, 019. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009359) — 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.