Position in chronology
MDP 17, 405
About this tablet
A small proto-Elamite accounting fragment from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3000 BCE. The proto-Elamite script is still undeciphered, so only the numbers can be read with any confidence: the tablet lists a series of entries, each pairing an unreadable sign (probably a commodity, category, or person) with a quantity of one or five, or with a smaller fractional unit. It belongs to the very earliest phase of administrative record-keeping in Iran, contemporary with the first writing in Mesopotamia.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
What survives is a short list of entries in an account. Something is counted at five, then a broken entry, then one small unit of the M376 item, then a broken entry headed by a compound sign, then one of the M009 item, then apparently one small unit of M376 again, then one of a lost item, then an entry whose number is gone, and finally one of the M346 item. The names of the goods or people cannot be read because the script is undeciphered, and the beginning and several lines are broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] : 5 [sign illegible] : [...] M376 : 1 (N08A, a fractional/small unit) M327+M059(d)? : [...] M009 : 1 M376? : 1 (N08A) [...] : 1 [sign illegible] : [number lost] M346 : 1
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
[...] , 5(N01)# x , [...] M376 , 1(N08A) |M327+M059~d|? , [...] M009# , 1(N01) M376#? , 1(N08A) [...] , 1(N01)# x , n M346 , 1(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 17, 405. 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 (P008603) — 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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