Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 4806
About this tablet
A broken clay tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in the proto-Elamite script — one of the world's oldest writing systems, and one that has never been deciphered. It is plainly an accounting document: a heading sign at the top, then a short column of entries, each a group of signs followed by a numeral impressed with the round end of a stylus. We can read the quantities — ones, tens, and one large unit at the bottom that probably totals the entries above — but not the words for what was being counted. Tablets like this were the working paperwork of Susa's earliest administration, recording rations, livestock, or stored goods for an institution whose language we still cannot hear.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger fragment. A heading sign opens the account, followed by an entry of several signs whose end is broken away. Then come the itemized lines: one unit for the first commodity, one unit for the second, two of the larger measure for the third, one unit, two units, and two of a further measure — each preceded by a sign group naming the item, none of which we can read. At the bottom stands a single large numeral, almost certainly the total. The rest of the tablet is broken, and the back is blank except for a few counting impressions along the edge.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) M157 — [heading/rubric sign] M081(?) M033 M009~a M269~b — [remainder broken] [...] M325~d M304 M278~e — 1 (N01) [...] M269~b — 1 (N01) M354 — 2 (N14) [...] — 1 (N01) M354 — 2 (N01) [...] — 2 (N30C~b) 1 (N34) (The signs are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered; only the numerical notations can be read with confidence. The reverse of the tablet is uninscribed apart from impressed numerical marks along the left edge.)
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# , M081#? M033 M009~a M269~b# , [...] [...] M325~d M304 M278~e , 1(N01) [...] M269~b , 1(N01) M354 , 2(N14) [...] , 1(N01) M354 , 2(N01) [...] , 2(N30C@b) 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 4806. 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 (P009241) — 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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