Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0068
About this tablet
A labor-inspection docket from Garšana, a private estate-town in southern Iraq run by the general Šu-Kabta and the royal princess Simat-Ištaran during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2035 BCE). A checker counted the crew assigned to grind malt — 16 men and 7 women under the foreman Ba-zi — and two officials, Iškur-illat and the scribe Puzur-Ninkar, took responsibility for the count. Malt was the raw material of beer, the staple drink and wage-good of Mesopotamia, so this tiny tablet is a snapshot of an industrial brewing operation being audited on a specific day: the 29th of the month of the Šulgi festival, in the second year of King Šu-Suen.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Head count for the malt-grinding detail: 16 men and 7 women, working under foreman Ba-zi. The crew was inspected and found present. Responsibility for the check rests with Iškur-illat and the scribe Puzur-Ninkar. Recorded at Garšana, in the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year King Šu-Suen erected the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil — on the 29th day.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine16 male workers, 7 female workers, overseer: Ba-zi, stationed to grind malt. Inspection carried out. Via Iškur-illat and Puzur-Ninkar, the scribe. In Garšana. Month: “Festival of Šulgi.” [Year:] Šu-Suen, the king, built the great stele for Enlil [and Ninlil]. Day 29.
Our translation engine — Opus 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
1(u) 6(disz) gurusz 7(disz) geme2 ugula ba-zi munu4 nag4-ga2-de3 gub-ba gurum2 ak giri3 iszkur-illat u3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 dub-sar sza3 gar-sza-an-na iti ezem-szul-gi [mu] szu-suen lugal [na]-ru2#-a-mah en-lil2 [nin-lil2]-ra mu-ne-du3 u4# 3(u) la2 1(disz)-kam
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0068. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-09-146 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323671). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-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.