Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0497
About this tablet
A small receipt from the household of Šu-Kabta at Garšana, southern Iraq, dated to the eighth year of King Šu-Suen of Ur (about 2030 BCE). It records two animals — a sheep and a goat — issued to two named men from the stock managed by Ili-bilani. The tablet was sealed by the scribe Iškur-illat, whose seal names his master Šu-Kabta, a prominent general and, here, 'physician'.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One sheep went to Tadin-Eštar and one goat to a man whose name is partly broken (Ša-...). Both were taken out of the stock held by Ili-bilani. Dated to the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year King Šu-Suen made the great ceremonial barge for the gods Enlil and Ninlil. The seal impression reads: Šu-Kabta, physician, son of Naram-ili — Iškur-illat, scribe, son of Abia, is your servant.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 sheep — Tadin-Eštar; 1 goat — Ša-...-ab-[...]; from Ili-bilani withdrawn. Month: Festival of Šulgi. Year: Šu-Suen, [the king], fashioned the great barge [for Enlil and Ninlil]. (Seal:) Šu-Kabta, physician, son of Naram-ili: Iškur-illat, 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
1(disz) udu ta2-din-esz18-dar 1(disz) masz2 sza?-x-[(x)]-ab-[x] ki i3-li2-bi-la-[ni-ta] ba-zi iti ezem-szul-gi# mu szu-suen [lugal]-ma2-gur8-mah [en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim] 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, 0497. 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 49-02-003 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323226). 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.