Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0382
About this tablet
A small Ur III accounting docket from Garšana, a private estate town in southern Iraq run by the general Šu-Kabta and his wife Simat-Ištaran, dated to the reign of Šu-Sîn of Ur (c. 2035 BCE). It records two jars of beer issued from the stock of the official Iškur-illat and drunk by the gang of laborers posted on the town's wall-building project, with Puzur-Ninkar as the officer who handled the delivery. Tablets like this one — beer for the crew on a construction site, logged to the exact day — are the reason the Garšana archive is so valuable: it shows the daily upkeep of a workforce rather than the grand claims of kings.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Two jars of beer, issued for the cauldron, were consumed by the work crew assigned to the wall-building project. Puzur-Ninkar handled the transfer, and the beer was debited from Iškur-illat's account. The transaction took place at Garšana in the month of ki-siki-Ninazu, on the 25th day of the year in which King Šu-Sîn erected the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil. This tablet is a copy of the original record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 jars of [beer], for the cauldron(s); the work-troops stationed at the construction of the [wall] have [consumed] (it). Via Puzur-[Nin]kar; from Iškur-illat it was expended. In Garšana. Month: ki-siki-Nin-[azu]. Year: Šu-Sîn the king erected the [great] stele for Enlil and Ninlil (= Šu-Sîn year 6). Day 25. Copy.
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
2(disz) dug#? [kasz?] szen-[sze3] erin2 al-tar [bad3 gub-ba] ib2-[gu7] giri3 puzur4-[nin]-kar-[ke3] [ki ]iszkur#-illat#-[ta] ba-zi sza3 gar-sza-an-na iti ki-siki nin-[a-zu] mu szu-suen lugal-e na-ru2-a-[mah] en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne#-[du3] u4 2(u) 5(disz)-kam gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0382. 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 49-02-013 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323236). 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.