Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4782
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the still-undeciphered proto-Elamite script. It records three parallel entries of the same commodity (each one unit of one measure plus one of a smaller measure), then two further entries, and closes with a single summed total. Because proto-Elamite words cannot yet be read, we know the arithmetic but not the goods or the people: the numerals, the ruled entries, and the summation are entirely legible while the vocabulary remains silent. Tablets like this are the earliest bookkeeping from the Iranian plateau, produced by an administration that borrowed the idea of writing from Uruk in Mesopotamia and then built its own signs.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A short ledger, opening with a heading sign. Three near-identical lines follow, each pairing the same two commodity signs with the same quantity: one large measure plus one small one. A fourth entry, on a damaged patch, lists a single unit against another sign-plus-numeral combination, and a fifth records three large measures and one smaller unit. The last line gives the total: one unit of the largest denomination. The reverse was left blank. What the goods actually were, and who handled them, cannot be recovered — proto-Elamite words are still unread.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) (heading) M157~a M387~a M036 — 1(N39B) 1(N30C)(?) M387 M036 — 1(N39B) 1(N30C) M387~ef M036 — 1(N39B) 1(N30C) |M260~1 + 1(N24)| — 1(N01) M288 — 3(N39B) 1(N24) (total) 1(N34) (Reverse: uninscribed / surface blank)
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
M157~a , M387~a M036 , 1(N39B) 1(N30C)#? M387# M036# , 1(N39B) 1(N30C) M387~ef M036 , 1(N39B) 1(N30C) |M260~1+1(N24)|# , 1(N01) M288 , 3(N39B) 1(N24) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4782. 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 (P009219) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
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