Position in chronology
MDP 17, 368
About this tablet
A fragment of a Proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in south-western Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in a script that remains undeciphered. What survives is a column of entries, each pairing one or more signs (probably designating a commodity, an institution, or a person) with a small count of one, two, or three units. It is bookkeeping, not prose: the earliest record-keeping tradition of Iran, contemporary with the first writing at Uruk in Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a tally sheet, most of it gone. What can still be read is a list of short items, each followed by a count: one of something, one of something marked with the sign M110, two of the item written M370, an unknown quantity of M072, one of the item written with three signs (M387-M009-M371), one more of M370, a damaged entry with a lost number, one of an illegible item, one more of M370 (uncertain), a four-sign entry whose number is lost, and a final entry of perhaps three. The commodities themselves cannot be named because the Proto-Elamite script has never been deciphered; the rest of the tablet is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse (fragment; eleven partial lines) [...] : 1 [...] M110 : 1 M370 : 2 M072 : [...] M387 M009 M371 : 1 M370 : 1 M066(?) M001(?) M376(?) : [...] [sign lost] : 1 M370(?) : 1 M145~a M377 [sign] M371 : [...] [...] : 3(?) (Remainder of the tablet broken; reverse uninscribed as far as the photo shows.)
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
[...] , 1(N01) [...] M110 , 1(N01) M370# , 2(N01) M072 , [...] M387 M009 M371 , 1(N01) M370 , 1(N01) M066? M001#? M376#? , [...] x , 1(N01) M370#? , 1(N01) M145~a M377 x M371 , [...] [...] , 3(N01)?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 368. 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 (P008566) — 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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