Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0502
About this tablet
A receipt from the private estate archive of Garšana in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of Šu-Suen of Ur (around 2035 BCE). It records thirty basket-loads of wool, sealed under covers, being sent off to the city of Girsu for processing, with the scribe Baba-ni in charge of transport and an official named Iškur-illat debited for the outlay. Such dockets show how raw wool moved from a country estate to the urban textile workshops that were a mainstay of the Ur III economy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Thirty baskets of wool, covered and tied down, have been shipped out to Girsu for carding. The scribe Baba-ni escorted the consignment. The wool was charged against the account of Iškur-illat, at Garšana. Dated in the month of the festival of An, in the year Šu-Suen, king of Ur, built the great ceremonial barge for the gods Enlil and Ninlil. This tablet is a duplicate copy.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine30 gurdub-baskets of wool, fitted with covers (ka-tab), for the carding(?) at Girsu; conveyed by Baba-ni, the scribe. From Iškur-illat it was withdrawn. In Garšana. Month: Festival of An. Year: "Šu-Suen, king of Ur, fashioned the great barge for Enlil and Ninlil." Copy.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
3(u) gurdub2 siki ka-tab se3-ga zu2-si gir2-su-sze3 giri3 ba-ba-ni dub-sar# ki iszkur-illat-ta ba-zi sza3 gar-sza-an-na iti ezem-an-na mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-dim2 gaba#-[ri]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0502. 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 49-15-514 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P324520). 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.