Position in chronology
MDP 17, 144
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100 BCE in a script that has never been deciphered. It records a short series of counted entries — each a cluster of commodity or category signs followed by a numeral, two of them still readable as '1'. Though we cannot say what was being counted, tablets like this are among the earliest bookkeeping documents in the world, produced by an administration in Elam that adapted the idea of writing from neighboring Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger with about five surviving line-items, most of them damaged. Two entries can still be balanced: one item tagged with the signs M388, M220 and M218 — one unit; another tagged M388, M347, M110 and M371 — one unit. Three further entries headed by the recurring sign M144 have lost their quantities to breakage. Because proto-Elamite script is still undeciphered, we can read the numbers but not what goods or people they count; the recurring signs likely name categories of commodities. The rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, fragmentary account) [...] M054 M144 [...] : [numeral lost] [...] M388 (+ one unread sign) M220 M218 : 1 (N01) M144 [...] : [numeral lost] M388 M347 M110~b M371 : 1 (N01) M144 [...] : [numeral lost] (remainder of the tablet broken; the reverse as preserved bears no legible text)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] M054# M144# [...] , [...] [...] M388 x M220 M218 , 1(N01) M144 [...] , [...] M388 M347 M110~b M371 , 1(N01) M144 [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 144. 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 (P008342) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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