Position in chronology
MDP 31, 038
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3200–3000 BCE — and now housed in the Louvre. It records quantities of an unidentified commodity or commodities against a category sign (M038~b1) whose meaning remains undeciphered, using the numerical notation system characteristic of early proto-Elamite accounting. Tablets like this are among the very earliest written records in human history, predating the development of any readable language, and represent the birth of large-scale institutional bookkeeping in the ancient Near East. The reverse is almost entirely blank, confirming this is a simple tally or summary account rather than a complex administrative document.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet recording quantities of goods — the exact commodity is unknown — in a numerical notation system. One category (marked by sign M038~b1) totals 8 large units, 4 medium units, and 3 small units. Other entries, partly broken away, record further quantities: one line shows 5 large units alongside smaller notations, another shows 4 units of a smaller denomination. The beginning of several lines is lost, and the full account cannot be reconstructed. The rest of the text is too damaged to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , [...] 2(N45) 1(N48) [...] 5(N14) x , 2(N34) 1(N45) [...] 5(N14) M038~b1 , 8(N34) 4(N14) 3(N01) [...] , 1(N01) 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N30D) [...] , 4(N23)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , [...] 2(N45) 1(N48) [...] 5(N14)# x , 2(N34) 1(N45) [...] 5(N14)# M038~b1 , 8(N34) 4(N14) 3(N01) [...] , 1(N01) 1(N24) 1(N30C) 1(N30D) [...] , 4(N23)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 31, 038. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009377) — 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.