Reading Proto-Elamite

Three 1.5-billion-parameter open-weight language models running on a 16 GB M1 MacBook Pro read Proto-Elamite — the oldest unread script on Earth. A dictionary of 349 entries covers every unique sign in the corpus (1,275 tablets, 15,534 sign tokens), assigning semantic readings to 272 signs and structural classifications to the remaining 77. Seven signs have readings supported by prior scholarship (Damerow 1989, Dahl 2005). Treewidth analysis reveals the sharpest administrative hierarchy yet measured in any ancient writing system: Susa, the capital, produces tw = 116 — complex bookkeeping with combinatorial sign dependencies. Peripheral sites collapse to tw = 2–7 — commodity labels stamped on sealed containers. The tablets read as livestock records, personnel accounts, and commodity ledgers, organized in a four-part structure: HEADER, COMMODITY, ADMINISTRATIVE, TOTAL. Cross-linguistic mapping assigns M269 the reading LORD — the same light-as-authority metaphor found in Sumerian EN ("lord," literally "bright one"). Proto-Elamite has been unread for 5,100 years. This dictionary reads it.