Position in chronology
MDP 31, 027
About this tablet
This is a Proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (in modern Iran), dated to the Uruk period, roughly 3100–2900 BCE. It is a commodity accounting record: a scribe has listed a series of unidentified goods — represented by signs whose meanings have not yet been deciphered — each paired with a quantity expressed in the Proto-Elamite numerical system. Tablets like this are among the earliest written records in the world, predating the full development of any known language in writing, and they show that complex economic bookkeeping drove the invention of writing independently in southwestern Iran as well as in Mesopotamia. Because Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, we can read the numbers but not the names of what is being counted.
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 commodities — their exact nature unknown, since the script has not been deciphered — each followed by a quantity. The entries run roughly: [commodity M305]; [commodity M269~b], quantity 2; [commodity M260], quantity 2; [compound commodity M036+numeral], quantity 3 large units plus 1 medium; [commodity M379], 1 unit; [commodity M278~g], 1 unit; [commodity M293~d], approximately 1–3 units (damaged); [unknown sign], 1 unit; [commodity M210~g], 3 large units plus 1 medium; [commodity M293~d again], 2 plus 1 large unit plus 1 medium, with a possible additional 2 units at the end. The rest is either damaged or lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM305 , M269~b , 2(N01) M260 , 2(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M379 , 1(N30C) M278~g , 1(N30C) M293~d , [1(N30C)] [2(N30D)]? x , 1(N39B) M210~g , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M293~d , 2(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) [2(N30C)]?
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M305 , M269~b , 2(N01) M260 , 2(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 3(N39B) 1(N24)# M379 , 1(N30C) M278~g , 1(N30C) M293~d , 1(N30C)# 2(N30D)#? x , 1(N39B) M210~g , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M293~d , 2(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 31, 027. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009367) — 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.