Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4787
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written in the still-undeciphered proto-Elamite script around 3100–2900 BCE. The scribe recorded a short list of entries: each line pairs one or two sign-groups — presumably commodities, owners, or institutional units — with a quantity written in impressed circles and dots from the proto-Elamite numerical systems. Because the language behind the script cannot be read, only the arithmetic is genuinely intelligible: this is a ledger whose numbers survive while its words do not. Its wider interest is that it comes from the very first generation of writing in Iran, when Susa's administrators were adapting Mesopotamian bookkeeping to their own local script.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a damaged page from an accountant's ledger. Several entries survive, each naming a commodity or account holder and then giving a figure: one line records 9 large units plus 2 small ones with a further high-order mark; another lists 2 large units, 4 small units and grain measures; a third, headed by the sign M203~c, gives 6 large units before the tablet breaks. Further entries follow — one with the repeated sign M387 totalling 4 large units and grain measures, one with only 1 unit left readable, one giving 3 units, and a final line with 4 large units before the surface is lost. The sign-groups that identify what is being counted cannot be read; the numbers are all that still speak.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse, column entries) [...] , [...] — 1(N45) 9(N14) 2(N01) […] [...] — 2(N14) 4(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N30C) M203~c M288 — 6(N14) [...] [...] M387~i M387~i M054 M288 — 4(N14) 3(N39B) 1(N30C) M340 [...] — [...] [...] — [...] 1(N01) M054 […] M288 — 3(N01) M371(?) […] […] M048~c M288 — 4(N14) [...] (The remaining surfaces — the four edges and the reverse — are uninscribed or too abraded to bear legible signs.)
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
[...] , [...] , 1(N45) 9(N14) 2(N01) x [...] , 2(N14) 4(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N30C) M203~c M288 , 6(N14) [...] [...] M387~i M387~i M054 M288 , 4(N14) 3(N39B) 1(N30C) M340 [...] , [...] [...] , [...] 1(N01)# M054 x M288# , 3(N01) M371#? x x M048~c# M288 , 4(N14)# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4787. 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 (P009224) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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