Position in chronology
MDP 17, 353
About this tablet
A fragmentary accounting tablet from Susa in south-western Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the proto-Elamite script, a still-undeciphered writing system. Each line pairs a sign (probably naming a commodity, an institution, or a category of workers or animals) with a quantity written in a numerical notation; the reverse carries a total. The signs cannot yet be read as words, but the numbers are legible and show bookkeepers at Susa tracking goods or people in a system closely related to that of the earliest Mesopotamian cities.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally from an administrator at Susa. One category is counted at 3 units; the next entry is broken; a third category is listed at 1 large unit and 3 small ones; a fourth at 3 small units. Two more entries follow, one at 3 units, with their other figures lost in the break, and one at a single fractional unit. The back of the tablet gives a total: 3 of one unit and 1 of another. What each category actually was cannot be read, because the proto-Elamite script remains undeciphered.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (proto-Elamite account): (1) [Sign M111] [sign M036 + 1 N30D] — 3 (N14) (2) [Sign M001] [...] — [...] (3) [Sign M264] — 1 (N14) 3 (N01) (4) [Sign M263] — 3 (N01) (5) [illegible sign] — [...] (6) [...] — 3 (N14) (7) [sign M036 + 1 N30D] — [...] (8) [...] — 1 (N30C)(?) [n] Reverse (total): 3 (N1@b) 1 (N24@b)
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
M111~o |M036+1(N30D)| , 3(N14) M001 [...] , [...] M264~a , 1(N14) 3(N01) M263~a , 3(N01) x , [...] [...] , 3(N14) |M036+1(N30D)| , [...] [...] , 1(N30C)# n 3(N1@b) 1(N24@b)#
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 353. 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 (P008551) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.