Position in chronology
MDP 17, 284
About this tablet
A small accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the still-undeciphered proto-Elamite script. Each line pairs a sign — probably naming a commodity, a person, or an institution — with a number of units impressed as round marks: 3, 2, 7, 4, 1. We can read the arithmetic perfectly but not the words, because proto-Elamite remains one of the last major writing systems no one can read. Tablets like this one are the ordinary bookkeeping of an early Iranian administration, the kind of ledger that kept a storehouse or workshop running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The top of the ledger is broken off. What survives reads like a short tally sheet: one item, 3 units; another, 2 units; a line lost; a two-sign entry, 7 units; then 4 units of the second item again, and 1 unit of a third. The next entry is illegible, and the final line is lost with the broken edge. The commodity names themselves are written in a script we still cannot read — only the quantities are certain.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse […] , […] (sign M362) , 3 (units, N01) (sign M367) , 2 (units, N01) […] , […] (signs M252 + M362) , 7 (units, N01) (sign M367) , 4 (units, N01) (sign M006) , 1 (unit, N01) (illegible sign) , […] […] , […] (Remainder broken away; reverse uninscribed as preserved.)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , [...] M362# , 3(N01) M367# , 2(N01) [...] , [...] M252 M362 , 7(N01) M367 , 4(N01) M006 , 1(N01) x , [...] [...] , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 284. 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 (P008482) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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