Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0632
About this tablet
A receipt from the Garšana archive in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of Šu-Suen of Ur (about 2035 BCE). A textile supervisor named Aštaqar takes delivery of roughly 22 kilograms of a particular grade of wool from the official Iškur-illat, presumably to be spun and woven by the workshop she oversees. Notably, the seal impression identifies Aštaqar as a woman — a female overseer of weavers in the household of Abuni — giving a rare glimpse of women in supervisory roles in the Ur III textile industry.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Aštaqar, the supervisor of the weavers, has received 44 and a half minas of gir-gul wool from Iškur-illat. Dated to the month of the Ninazu festival, in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur destroyed the land of Zabšali. The tablet is sealed with Aštaqar's own seal, which reads: 'Aštaqar, overseer of weavers, servant of Abuni.'
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine44 ½ minas of gir-gul wool, from Iškur-illat Aštaqar, the overseer of weavers, received. Month: Festival of Ninazu. Year: Šu-Suen, king of Ur, destroyed the land of Zabšali. (Seal:) Aštaqar, overseer of weavers, servant-woman of Abuni.
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
4(u) 4(disz) 1/2(disz) ma-na siki gir2-gul ki iszkur-illat-ta asz-ta2-qar ugula usz-bar szu ba-an-ti iti ezem-nin#-a-zu mu szu-suen lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul asz-ta2-qar ugula usz-bar geme2 a-bu-ni
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0632. 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 48-04-040 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322553). 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.