Position in chronology
Sb 15222
About this tablet
An accounting tablet from Susa in southwestern Iran, written around 3100 BCE in the proto-Elamite script — one of the world's earliest writing systems and one that remains undeciphered. A bookkeeper recorded several entries, each pairing sign-combinations (probably commodities, institutions, or persons) with precise quantities, ending with what looks like a grand total. We can count exactly what was tallied, but we still cannot name the goods or people: the numbers speak, the words do not — yet.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a ledger. Under a heading marking the document's type, the clerk lists a series of entries: one item at one unit plus small fractions; a second item at three units plus fractions; a third item at fractional amounts only. At least one further entry is broken away and lost. At the end stands a single large-value numeral — sixty in the sexagesimal reckoning — evidently the sum of the account. Because proto-Elamite is undeciphered, we can read the arithmetic but not the names of the commodities or the parties involved.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(Obverse) Line 1: M157 (heading/rubric sign — document classifier) Line 2: M386~da, M304, M297 — 1(N01) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) [= 1 unit plus fractions] Line 3: [x] M139, M297 — 3(N01) 3(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) [= 3 units plus fractions] Line 4: M297(?) — 1(N39B)(?) 1(N30D) 1(N39C) [fractional quantities only] Line 5: [...] — [...] (entry lost in break) (Final entry / reverse) Line 6: 1(N34) [a single large-unit numeral, most likely the total of the account]
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
M157# , M386~da M304 M297 , 1(N01) 2(N30C) 1(N30D)# x M139 M297 , 3(N01) 3(N39B) 2(N30C) 1(N30D) M297#? , 1(N39B)#? 1(N30D) 1(N39C) [...] , [...] 1(N34)
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Proto-Elamite (ca. 3100-2900 BC)) — Sb 15222. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: Louvre Museum, Paris, France (P272828) — 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.