Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0843
About this tablet
A small receipt from the Garšana archive in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of King Šu-Suen of Ur (around 2035 BCE). A leatherworker named Anaḫ-ilī signs for a single lamb skin, noted as coming from an animal that had died rather than been slaughtered, handed over by an official named Iškur-illat. Such dockets show how tightly the estate tracked even one hide, recycling dead livestock into the leather workshop.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One lamb skin — the hide of a sheep that died — was handed over by Iškur-illat to Anaḫ-ilī, the leatherworker, who received it. Dated to the Akiti month, in the year Šu-Suen the king built the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 lamb skin — skin of a dead sheep. From Iškur-illat, Anaḫ-ilī, the leatherworker, received (it). [Month]: Akiti. Year: "Šu-Suen, the king, built the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil."
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
1(disz) kusz sila4 kusz udu usz2 ki iszkur-illat-ta a-na-ah-i3-li2 aszgab szu ba-an-ti [iti] a2-ki-ti mu# szu-suen lugal#-e na#-ru2#-[a]-mah# en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0843. 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 48-04-033 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322546). 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.