Position in chronology
MDP 06, 355
About this tablet
This is a proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern southwest Iran), dating to roughly 3100–2900 BCE — among the very earliest writing systems ever used. It records allocations or rations of commodities (the exact goods are not yet deciphered) assigned in units of 1 and 5 across three groups or categories. Proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered, so the signs can be identified and counted but their phonetic or semantic values cannot be read aloud. Tablets like this are the bureaucratic backbone of one of the world's first urban economies, tracking goods through a complex administrative hierarchy at one of the great cities of the ancient Near East.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet lists three entries, each recording a quantity of 1 unit in the main line, followed by a sub-entry of 5 units — the goods or commodities involved are identified by sign sequences that scholars can recognize but not yet fully read. Each entry appears to track a different category or type of item, distinguished by combinations of classifier signs. The tablet uses a standard numerical notation system: 'N01' marks individual units and 'N30D' or 'N14' mark larger groupings. The rest of the tablet's reverse is too damaged and eroded to read.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[Header/Tablet-type marker] M305 M388 M240 M097~h M004 M218 M263 — 1(N01) [Sub-entry:] |M036+1(N30D)| — 5(N01) M305 M388 [M128] [M128] M096 M263~e — 1(N01) [Sub-entry:] |M036+1(N30D)| — 5(N01) M009~a M305 M388 M217 M035 M066 M263~e — 1(N01) [Sub-entry:] |M036+1(N14)| — 5(N01)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 4.6. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
M005~a , M305 M388 M240 M097~h# M004 M218 M263 , 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 5(N01) M305 M388# M128# M128# M096 M263~e , 1(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 5(N01) M009~a M305 M388 M217 M035 M066# M263~e , 1(N01) |M036+1(N14)| , 5(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 355. 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 (P008137) — 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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