Position in chronology
MDP 06, 304
About this tablet
This small clay fragment, held at the Louvre (Sb 15143) and excavated at Susa in modern Iran, is written in the proto-Elamite script — a system used in southwestern Iran around 3100–2900 BCE, roughly contemporary with the earliest proto-cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia. Unlike proto-cuneiform, proto-Elamite has never been deciphered: scholars can recognize its numeral notations and repeated sign-shapes (catalogued here by 'M' sign numbers) but cannot read what the signs mean or say. What survives is a column of entries, each pairing an unreadable commodity or category sign with a small quantity (recorded with the N14 and N01 numeral notations), suggesting some kind of household or institutional accounting record — but its exact subject remains unknown.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a fragment of an ancient accounting tablet from Susa, written in a script that nobody today can actually read. What survives looks like a list: line after line pairs an unidentified item or category — shown here only as sign codes like M101, M230, M024, M153 — with a small number, often '1' or '2,' recorded in the numeral system of the period. It's clearly some kind of tally or inventory, the sort of everyday bookkeeping a Susa official might have kept for goods, rations, or livestock, but because the proto-Elamite writing system has resisted decipherment, we cannot say what was actually being counted. Much of the tablet is broken, so several lines are only fragments of larger, now-lost entries.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse — proto-Elamite numerical/administrative entries, script undeciphered) Line 1: [...] , 1(N14) 2(N01) Line 2: x [...] , [...] Line 3: [...] , 1(N14) Line 4: M101(variant b) , 2(N14) Line 5: [...] x M230, M024#, M033# , 1(N14) Line 6: M146# x , [...] Line 7: [...] , [...] 1(N14) 1(N01) Line 8: [...] M254 (variant a, partially preserved) , [...] Line 9: [...] , 1(N01)# Line 10: [...] M387 (variant a), M110# , [...] Line 11: [...] , 1(N01) Line 12: [...] M153, M059 (variant f, uncertain) , [...] Line 13: [...] M309#?, M314# [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , 1(N14)# 2(N01)# x [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N14) M101~b , 2(N14) [...] x M230 M024# M033# , 1(N14) M146# x , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N14) 1(N01) [...] M254~a#? , [...] [...] , 1(N01)# [...] M387~a M110# , [...] [...] , 1(N01) [...] M153 M059~f# , [...] [...] M309#? M314# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 304. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P008093) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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