Position in chronology
MDP 26S, 5240
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100–2900 BCE in Proto-Elamite — one of the world's earliest writing systems, and one that remains undeciphered. Only the numbers can be read with confidence: the tablet lists at least fourteen entries, each pairing a group of word-signs (probably commodities, people, or institutions) with a counted or measured quantity, some quite large. The recurring sign M288 at the end of many entries likely served as a category marker. Tablets like this show a full-fledged bureaucracy operating at Susa in parallel with the better-known one at Uruk in Mesopotamia — bookkeeping in a language we still cannot read.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger with about fourteen line items. Each line names something — a commodity, a person, or an office, written in signs we can no longer read — and then records an amount: one large unit and six tens in the first entry; two and a fraction in another; five units plus fractions; twenty-one units with fractions; thirty-two units; smaller amounts of one, two, and three units in the closing entries. Many entries end with the same classifying sign, suggesting the counted items belonged to one category, perhaps a grain or product measured in both whole units and fractions. Large portions of the tablet are broken away, so the headings of several entries and some quantities are lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Proto-Elamite administrative account; the non-numerical signs are undeciphered and are given by their sign-list numbers. Each entry pairs a sign-group with a quantity.) [...] : 1(N45) 6(N14) [...] [...] : [...] 1(N14)? M305 M388 M110 M242b M096 [...] : [quantity lost] [...] (illegible sign) : 2(N01) 1(N39B) (two illegible signs) : 1(N01) [...] M320 M288 : 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] M103(var.2) M254a (illegible) M387c M288 : 5(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N14)? [...] (illegible sign) : 2(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N30D) [...] M259? M281f M096 M288 : 3(N14) 2(N01) [...] [...] : [...] 1(N24) M304 M388 M115 |M296+M296| M288 : 1(N14) 3(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C) [...] M288 : 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] : 2(N01) M073b M230a M096 M288 : 3(N01)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[...] , 1(N45) 6(N14) [...] [...] , [...] 1(N14)#? M305# M388 M110 M242~b# M096 [...] , [...] [...] x , 2(N01)# 1(N39B)# x x , 1(N01)# [...] M320# M288 , 1(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] M103~2# M254~a x M387~c M288 , 5(N01) 3(N39B) 1(N14)? [...] x , 2(N14) 1(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N30D) [...] M259#? M281~f M096 M288 , 3(N14) 2(N01) [...] [...] , [...] 1(N24) M304 M388# M115# |M296+M296| M288# , 1(N14) 3(N01) 2(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C) [...] M288# , 1(N01)# 1(N39B) 1(N24) [...] , 2(N01)# M073~b M230~a M096 M288 , 3(N01)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 26S, 5240. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009338) — 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.