Position in chronology
MDP 17, 342
About this tablet
A broken corner of a proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, around 3100–2900 BCE. Proto-Elamite is a still-undeciphered script, so only the numbers can be read with confidence: each line names an item or a person with a sign cluster, then records a quantity using a counting system akin to that of contemporary Uruk. It is a scrap of bookkeeping from one of the earliest literate administrations in the world, preserving tallies whose objects we cannot yet name.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a list of entries, each ending in a tally. The first line ends with a count of 3 units plus 1 fraction. The second begins with a category sign but its number is lost. The third names something with two signs and records 1 ten-unit, 3 units, plus 1 ten and 2 units counted in a second (notched) system. The fourth line keeps only the tail of its tally: 1 ten, 1 unit, probably 1 of a small fractional measure, and a lost amount in the notched system. The rest of the tablet is broken away, and the back is blank.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, fragment) [...] — 3 (N01) 1 (N39B) M264~d [...] — [...] [...] M036 M343~h — 1 (N14) 3 (N01) 1 (N14@b) 2 (N1@b) [...] — [...] 1 (N14) 1 (N01) 1 (N30C)(?) n (n@b) (remainder broken; reverse 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
[...] , 3(N01) 1(N39B) M264~d [...] , [...] [...] M036 M343~h , 1(N14) 3(N01) 1(N14@b) 2(N1@b) [...] , [...] 1(N14)# 1(N01) 1(N30C)#? n(n@b)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 342. 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 (P008540) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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