Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4795
About this tablet
A small clay accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written about 3100–2900 BCE in the still-undeciphered proto-Elamite script. It is a short ledger: a heading sign at the top, then a column of entries, each pairing a group of signs — probably names of people, institutions, or commodity categories — with a small quantity recorded in impressed numerals. Because proto-Elamite writing has never been read, we can recover the structure of the account (who or what, and how much) but not the words themselves. The back is blank, and the sides carry only modern museum numbers, Sb 15301 and 4795.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A short account, ruled into entries. Under a heading now damaged, the scribe lists five allocations: to one party, one unit of each of two small measures; to a second, the same; to a third whose name is lost, again the same; to a fourth, marked with a sign compounded with a numeral, one large unit; and to a fifth, one unit of each small measure again. A final line survives only as scratched traces. The reverse was left blank — the whole account fitted on one face.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) [M157] — (heading sign, damaged) M304 M146~d M383~n M151~c : 1 (N30C) 1 (N30D) M033 [—] : 1 (N30C) 1 (N30D) [ ... ] : 1 (N30C) 1 (N30D) M111~n M218(?) |M036 + 1(N30D)| : 1 (N14) M219 [ ... ] : 1 (N30C) 1 (N30D) [one further line, traces only — illegible] (reverse: uninscribed)
Our translation engine — Opus 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
M157# , M304 M146~d M383~n M151~c , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) M033# , 1(N30C) 1(N30D)# [x] , 1(N30C)# 1(N30D) M111~n M218? |M036+1(N30D)| , 1(N14) M219 [x] , 1(N30C) 1(N30D) x
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4795. 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 (P009231) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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