Position in chronology
MDP 17, 064
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the Proto-Elamite script — a writing system that has never been deciphered. A scribe recorded small quantities (one or two units each) of goods or categories whose names we can no longer read, under a heading sign at the top. Tablets like this show that bookkeeping, not literature, drove the earliest writing in Iran, and each one is a small piece of the still-unsolved decipherment puzzle.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a short ledger. It opens with a heading — some category or account label we can't read — and then lists six entries: one item counted at 2, another whose amount is broken off, two more items at 2 each, one at 1, and a final damaged entry also at 1. The commodities being counted are written in signs whose meanings are lost, so we know the amounts but not what was being tallied. The back of the tablet is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Header) M341 — (category label, no numeral) M038~b1 M032 — 2 (units) M210~n — [quantity broken away] M184~e M032 — 2 (units) M323~d M032 — 2 (units) M368~d M032 — 1 (unit) [sign lost] M032 M032 — 1 (unit, damaged) (The signs are Proto-Elamite and undeciphered; only the numerical notations — one header entry followed by six quantified entries in the N01 counting system — can be read with confidence. The reverse is uninscribed.)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
M341 , M038~b1 M032 , 2(N01) M210~n , [...] M184~e M032 , 2(N01) M323~d M032 , 2(N01) M368~d M032 , 1(N01) x M032# M032# , 1(N01)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 064. 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 (P008262) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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