Position in chronology
MDP 06, 5000
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite administrative tablet from Susa (modern Shush, southwestern Iran), dating to the Uruk period, roughly 3200–2900 BCE. It records quantities of commodities — whose exact nature remains undeciphered — distributed across multiple entries, each pairing one or more sign-clusters with numerical notations in the proto-Elamite counting system. Proto-Elamite is the world's most extensively attested undeciphered writing system: the signs can be read as numbers and commodity classifiers, but their spoken language behind them is unknown. This tablet is a vivid example of ancient accountancy at the very dawn of writing, when institutions in the ancient Near East were developing record-keeping to manage goods, animals, or rations at scale.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is an account record listing various categories of goods or commodities — we can read the numbers but not the names of the things being counted. The heading sign at the top likely identifies the document type or institutional context. Entry by entry, the tablet logs: roughly 2 large units of one commodity; 1 small unit and 1 fractional unit of another; damaged entries recording mixed quantities including medium and small fractions; 1 small plus 2 fractional units of a paired commodity group amounting to several sub-denominations; 13 units of another; 14 of another; 2 of another; approximately 14 of another; and finally a large quantity of around 75 units of the last commodity listed. The rest is broken or lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineM157 [heading/rubric] [x] M297[?] , 2(N14) M038~e , 1(N01) 1(N39B) M305~i [x] [...] , [...] 1(N24) 1(N30C) M286 M297~b , 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24)[?] 2(N30C) 1(N30D) M102~da[?] M004 M218 , 1(N14) 3(N01) M006 [x] , 1(N14) [x] M136~c , 2(N01) |M317+X| , 1(N14)[?] [...] M297[?] , 7(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
M157 , x M297#? , 2(N14) M038~e , 1(N01) 1(N39B) M305~i x [...] , [...] 1(N24) 1(N30C) M286# M297~b 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24)#? 2(N30C) 1(N30D) M102~da# M004 M218 , 1(N14) 3(N01) M006 x , 1(N14) x M136~c , 2(N01) |M317+X| , 1(N14)# [...] M297#? , 7(N14) 5(N01)# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 06, 5000. 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 (P272827) — 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
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