Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0849
About this tablet
A small receipt from Garšana, a private estate in southern Iraq, dated to the reign of Šu-Suen of Ur around 2030 BCE. It records the delivery of seven leather bags containing a dried commodity, handed over by a man named Ana-ḫilī and conveyed by the scribe Iškur-illat. The seal belongs to that same scribe, who identifies himself as the servant of Šu-Kabta, the estate's owner — here unusually titled 'physician' rather than 'general'. The year-name commemorating Šu-Suen's great stele for Enlil and Ninlil lets us date the tablet precisely.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Received: seven leather bags of dried ti-bala, supplied by Ana-ḫilī. Delivery handled by Iškur-illat. Dated in the month of the Great Festival, in the year King Šu-Suen set up the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil. Stamped with the seal of Iškur-illat, scribe, son of Abia, who signs himself as the servant of Šu-Kabta the physician, son of Naram-ilī.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engineObverse: 7 leather bags (du10-gan) of dried ti-bala, from Ana-ḫilī; delivered (mu-kux), via Iškur-illat. Month: Ezem-maḫ ("Great Festival"). Year: Šu-Suen, [the king], erected the great stele for Enlil and Ninlil. Seal: Šu-Kabta, the physician, son of Naram-ilī: Iškur-illat, the 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
7(disz) du10-gan# ti-bala had2# ki a-na-hi-li2-ta# mu-kux(DU) giri3 iszkur-illat iti ezem-mah mu szu-suen [lugal]-e na-ru2-a-mah#-[]en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3 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, 0849. 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 49-02-001 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323224). 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.