Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0510
About this tablet
An administrative receipt from Garšana, a private estate in southern Iraq run by a general and his physician wife under the Ur III empire, dated to the ninth year of King Šu-Suen (c. 2029 BCE). It records oils, lard, groats, bran, salt, and 33 sheep carcasses issued from the account of an official named Iškur-illat as rations and provisions for the estate's slave workers. The last word marks the tablet as a duplicate copy, showing how carefully the estate's bookkeepers tracked disbursements.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a disbursement note: about 8 sila of sesame oil, 14 sila of lard, 26 sila of groats, over 2 talents of bran, 33 sheep carcasses, some 25 sila of salt, a further small quantity of an item now lost, and 2 barig of fine dark bran. All of it was issued as oil rations and supplies for the male and female slaves, charged against Iškur-illat's account, at Garšana. Dated to the first month of the year Šu-Suen built Šara's temple in Umma. Marked as a copy.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine8 sila 10 shekels of [sesame?] oil, 1 ban 4 sila 2 shekels of lard, 2 ban 6 sila of groats, 2 talents 28 shekels of bran(?) [...], 33 sheep carcasses, 2 ban 5 2/3 sila of salt(?), 9 1/3 sila 6 shekels of [...], 2 barig of fine dark bran, oil rations and requisitions for the female and male slaves. From Iškur-illat withdrawn. In Garšana. Month: Ubi-gu (month 1). Year: Šu-[Suen, king] of Ur, [built] the temple of Šara in Umma (Šu-Suen 9). 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
8(disz) sila3 1(u) gin2 i3-[gesz?] 1(ban2) 4(disz) sila3! 2(disz) gin2 i3-szah2# 2(ban2) 6(disz) sila3 nig2-ar3-ra 2(asz) gu2 2(u) 8(disz) gin2 duh?-[(x)] du3-[x] 3(u) 3(disz) ad3 udu 2(ban2) 5(disz) 2/3(disz) sila3 mun? 9(disz) 1/3(disz) sila3 6(disz) gin2 [...] 2(barig) duh saga ge6 i3-ba u3 nig2-dab5 geme2 ARAD2 ki iszkur-illat-ta ba-zi sza3 gar-sza-an-na iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu szu-[suen lugal]-uri5-ma-ke4 e2 szara2 umma-[ka ba-du3] gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0510. 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 49-02-016 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323239). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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.