Position in chronology
MDP 31, 027
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 records quantities of some commodity — most likely grain, judging by the numeral system used — booked against a series of entities or products, each written with a sign whose meaning is lost. Proto-Elamite is the world's oldest still-unreadable writing system, yet its numbers can be read perfectly well: we can audit the arithmetic of clerks whose words we cannot understand.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a bookkeeper's ledger. Under a heading we can no longer read, it lists ten entries: two items at 2 whole units each, then a run of smaller amounts — fractions of a unit of what was probably grain — assigned to different products or account-holders, one of whose signs is now illegible. One entry recurs and closes the list with the largest amount: 2 whole units plus several fractions, quite possibly the sum of the account. The names of the commodities and people are written in signs nobody today can translate; only the quantities still speak.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Proto-Elamite account; the signs are undeciphered — sign designations are given with their numerical notations) M305 (heading/rubric, no numeral) M269~b — 2 N01 M260 — 2 N01 M036+1(N30D) — 3 N39B, 1 N24 [numeral damaged] M379 — 1 N30C M278~g — 1 N30C M293~d — 1 N30C [damaged], 2 N30D(?) [illegible sign] — 1 N39B M210~g — 3 N39B, 1 N24 M293~d — 2 N01, 1 N39B, 1 N24, 2 N30C(?) (N01 is the basic whole unit; N39B, N24, N30C and N30D are successively smaller fractional units of the proto-Elamite grain-capacity system. The final, larger entry for M293~d may be a running total.)
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
M305 , M269~b , 2(N01) M260 , 2(N01) |M036+1(N30D)| , 3(N39B) 1(N24)# M379 , 1(N30C) M278~g , 1(N30C) M293~d , 1(N30C)# 2(N30D)#? x , 1(N39B) M210~g , 3(N39B) 1(N24) M293~d , 2(N01) 1(N39B) 1(N24) 2(N30C)?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — MDP 31, 027. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P009367) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.