Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0355
About this tablet
A construction account from Garšana, a private estate town in southern Iraq whose archive covers the last decades of the Ur III kingdom (about 2030 BCE). It records earthmoving for the retaining terrace of a building belonging to a man named Butanum: the length of the stretch worked, the daily earth quota per man, the total labor of 1,297 man-days, and the barley wage of 6 sila a day. The overseer of the hired crew, the scribe who handled the paperwork, and the estate's chief administrator are all named — a snapshot of how a large private household organized and paid casual labor.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Earthwork account: a stretch 72 ninda long, with each laborer assigned 2½ shekels of earth per day. Total labor came to 1,297 man-days, and the men were hired at a daily wage of 6 sila of barley. The earth was expended on the retaining terrace of Butanum's house. Received as a delivery. Lilâ was foreman of the hired crew; the transaction passed through the scribe Puzur-Ninkar and Iškur-illat, the estate's chief administrator. Dated to the month of the Mekigal festival, in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur destroyed the land of Zabšali.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...] 4 shekels [(volume of)] earth; its length: 72 ninda; the work-assignment per workman: 2 1/2 shekels each; its workmen: 1,297, for 1 day; they were hired at 6 sila of barley each. Earth expended (for) the kisâ (retaining terrace) of the house of Bu[tanum]. Delivery. Lilâ, overseer of the hired men. Via Puzur-Ninkar, the scribe, and Iškur-illat, the chief household administrator (šabra). Month: "Festival of Mekigal." Year: Šu-Suen, king of Ur, [destroyed the land of] Zab-šali.
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
[... n] 4(disz) gin2 [...] sahar us2#-bi 1(gesz2) 1(u) 2(disz) ninda a2 gurusz-a 2(disz) 1/2(disz) gin2-ta gurusz-bi 2(gesz'u) 1(gesz2) 3(u) 7(disz) u4 1(disz)-sze3 sze 6(disz) sila3-ta ba-hun sahar zi-ga [ki]-sa2#-a e2 bu#-[ta-nu-um] mu-kux(DU)# li-la-a ugula lu2 hun-ga2 giri3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 dub-sar u3 iszkur-illat szabra iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 mu szu-suen lugal#-uri5-[ma]-ke4# [ma-da za]-ab-sza-[li mu]-hul#?
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0355. 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 49-11-037 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323723). 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.