Position in chronology
MDP 17, 349
About this tablet
A badly broken Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, dating to around 3100–2900 BCE — the era when the first writing systems were being devised. Six fragments preserve parts of a list pairing undeciphered sign-groups (probably goods, animals, or labor categories) with counts, of which only '1' and '9' survive. Proto-Elamite remains essentially undeciphered, so we can recognize the bookkeeping format but not the items being counted.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is the remnant of an inventory. The surviving entries read roughly: an item described by several signs — quantity lost; another item — 1; an item of the M259/M150 category — quantity lost; an item marked with M320, M388 and perhaps M346 — quantity lost; a further entry — 9; and a final entry under the M346 category, its number gone. Most of the tablet, including whatever ran above and below these lines, is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (fragmentary) [...] (unread sign) M388 M066~a M087 [...] : [number lost] [...] : 1 M259 M150 [...] : [number lost] M320 M388 M346(?) : [number lost] [...] : 9 M346 : [number lost] (Remainder of tablet broken)
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
[...] x M388 M066~a M087 [...] , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M259 M150 [...] , [...] M320# M388# M346#? , [...] [...] , 9(N01)# M346 , [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 349. 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 (P008547) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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