Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5218
About this tablet
A proto-Elamite accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in a script that has never been deciphered. It is a ledger: each line pairs a sign (probably naming a commodity, person, or institution) with a counted quantity, and the last line appears to give a grand total in a larger unit. Tablets like this are among humanity's very first bookkeeping documents — we can read the numbers perfectly, but the things being counted are still a mystery.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a running account, now broken into fragments. The readable entries go: one unit of something identified by a string of signs; another item whose count is lost; then several single-unit entries — one of this, one of that, two of another, one more, one more. Two entries jump to a larger counting unit: two big units of one item and two of another. One entry's number is broken away. The final line looks like the total: one very large unit, three big units, and four small grain-measures of the recurring item. What exactly was being counted — grain, animals, workers, rations — we can no longer say, because the script has never been deciphered. The rest is lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse — fragmentary account) [...] , [... commodity entry:] M388 M146 M377 M347 M371 M054 — 1 (N01) M032 — [quantity broken] [... sign(s) lost] — 1 (N01) M054 — 1 (N01) M373 — 2 (N01) M046 — 1 (N01) M288 — 1 (N01) M033 — 2 (N14) [= 2 large/ten-units] M376 M124 — 2 (N14) M072 — [quantity broken] (Probable total line:) M288 — 1 (N45), 3 (N14), 4 (N39B) [...] (The commodity signs M388, M146, M377, M347, M371, M054, M032, M373, M046, M288, M033, M376, M124, M072 are proto-Elamite and remain undeciphered; only the numerical notations can be read with assurance.)
Our translation engine — Fable 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
[...] , [...] M388 M146 M377~e M347 M371 M054 , 1(N01) M032# , [...] [...] , 1(N01) M054 , 1(N01) M373 , 2(N01) M046 , 1(N01) M288 , 1(N01)# M033 , 2(N14) M376 M124 , 2(N14) M072 , [...] M288# , 1(N45) 3(N14) 4(N39B) [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5218. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009318) — 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
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.