Position in chronology
SE 125
About this tablet
A small proto-cuneiform or proto-Elamite accounting tablet, probably from Susa (southwestern Iran), dating to the late fourth millennium BCE — among the very earliest stages of writing in the ancient world. It lists several distinct commodity categories, each followed by a quantity, with a summary or totalling line at the end. None of the sign values have been deciphered with certainty: this is one of hundreds of similar administrative records whose script remains undecoded. Its interest lies precisely in that antiquity — it is a fragment of the moment when human beings first tried to fix economic transactions in clay, before writing had acquired a fully readable language.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records several categories of goods or commodities — each identified by its own sign — with quantities attached: one of the first item, one of the second, four of a third, three of a fourth, one of a fifth, six of a sixth. The final line appears to give a larger summary count: one big unit and six small units of the recurring category. Because the script has not been deciphered, we can see the accounting structure clearly but cannot name what is being counted. The reverse is blank or uninscribed.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Header/label sign: M252~q] [M001] [M376] — 1 (unit) [M387~c] [M387~c] — 1 (unit) [M365] — 4 (units) [M175] [M248~b?] — 3 (units) [M125#] [M310] — 1 (unit) [M310#] — 6 (units)# [M376] — 1 (large unit) 6 (small units)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Transliteration
M252~q , M001 M376 , 1(N01) M387~c M387~c , 1(N01) M365 , 4(N01) M175 M248~b? , 3(N01) M125# M310 , 1(N01) M310# , 6(N01)# M376 , 1(N14) 6(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — SE 125. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Couvent Saint-Etienne, Jerusalem (P009442) — 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.