Position in chronology
RA 050, 202 13
About this tablet
An archaic proto-cuneiform accounting tablet from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period — roughly 3300–3000 BCE, among the very earliest writing in human history. The tablet records quantities of one or more commodities against a numerical system using impressed circular and linear signs. The commodity sign (M367) is not yet fully deciphered, but the repeated pairing of commodity entries with capacity or count notations is entirely typical of early administrative bookkeeping at Susa and Uruk. This is a fragment of the world's first bureaucracy, capturing an inventory or delivery in a form that would be recognizable to any modern accountant.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists quantities of one or more goods — probably a commodity we cannot yet name — recorded in a tally format. Eight units of something, then eight more, then one, then several entries of a different unit, two of another measure, and so on down to a final single count. The left side of the tablet is too broken to read, and the identity of the commodity (marked by sign M367) remains unknown. What survives is essentially a numbered list: a running count of goods received, stored, or distributed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] , 8(N01) [x] , 8(N01) [x] , 1(N01) [x] , 1(N30C) [x] , 1(N30C) [...] [x] , 2(N39B) [x] , 1(N30C) [x] , 1(N30C) [M367?] , 1(N30C)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
[...] , 8(N01) x , 8(N01)# x , 1(N01) x , 1(N30C) x , 1(N30C) [...] x , 2(N39B) x , 1(N30C) x , 1(N30C) M367#? , 1(N30C)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — RA 050, 202 13. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009492) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-4-6 (2026-05-28/v6-glossary-aware).
Related tablets
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.