Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0469
About this tablet
A small receipt from the Garšana archive in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of Šu-Suen of the Ur III dynasty (around 2035 BCE). It records goats and a sheep taken out of the stock managed by a man named Ili-bilani, in Umma, for a palace official called the zabardab. The tablet was sealed by the scribe Iškur-illat, whose seal declares him the servant of Šu-Kabta, the powerful Garšana estate-holder — here unusually titled 'physician' rather than 'general'.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A few full-grown goats were issued to the zabardab official, along with one sheep (the details are damaged), at Umma. They were withdrawn from the account of Ili-bilani. Date: the month of 'Piglet-eating', in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur built the great barge for the gods Enlil and Ninlil. Stamped with the seal of Iškur-illat the scribe, son of Abia, servant of Šu-Kabta the physician, son of Naram-ili.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] full-grown billy goats — (for) the zabardab official; 1(?) sheep(?) ... in Umma; from Ili-bilani withdrawn. Month: "Piglet-eating" (iti ses-da-gu7). Year: "Šu-Suen, king of Ur, fashioned the great barge for Enlil and Ninlil." (Seal:) Šu-Kabta, the physician, son of Naram-ili: Iškur-illat, the scribe, son of Abia, (is) your servant.
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
[n] masz2-gal zabar#-dab5 1(disz)? udu?-x-x-x sza3 umma ki i3-li2-bi-la-ni-ta ba-zi iti ses-da-gu7 mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-[ke4] ma2-gur8-mah [en]-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim2 szu-kab2-ta a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 iszkur-illat dub-sar dumu a-bi2-a ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0469. 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 48-02-009 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322411). 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.