Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1007
About this tablet
A small expenditure receipt from Garšana, a private estate in southern Iraq, dated to the seventh year of King Šu-Suen of Ur (c. 2030 BCE). It records beer and flour issued for offerings on the day the gate of the estate's brewery, kitchen, and mill was ceremonially bound or sealed, plus a second small offering. The tablet ends with the word 'copy', showing it is an archival duplicate — a glimpse of how the estate's bookkeepers documented ritual expenses tied to the daily running of its food-production buildings.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One jug of dida-beer, one liter of coarse flour, and one liter of fine flour were issued for the offering made on the day the gate of the brewery, kitchen, and mill complex was sealed. Another liter each of coarse and fine flour went for a second offering, the name of which is damaged. All of this was charged to Iškur-illat's account; the scribe Puzur-Ninkar handled the transfer. Dated to the Akiti month in the year Šu-Suen, king of Ur, destroyed the land of Zabšali. This tablet is a copy.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 jug of dida-beer of ... quality, 1 sila of dabin-flour, [1] sila of eša-flour, for the offering, when the gate of the brewery, the kitchen, and the mill was bound (closed); 1 sila of dabin-flour, 1 sila of eša-flour, offering of ...-ad(?); from Iškur-[illat] withdrawn. Conveyor: Puzur-Ninkar, the scribe. Month: Akiti. Year: "Šu-Suen, [king of Ur, destroyed the land of Zab]šali." Copy.
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
1(disz) dug dida2 du x 1(disz) sila3 dabin [1(disz)] sila3# esza siskur2#-sze3 u4 ka2 e2-bappir e2-muhaldim u3 e2 kikken2 kesz2-ra2# 1(disz) sila3# dabin 1(disz) sila3 esza siskur2 x?-ad#? ki iszkur-[illat]-ta ba-zi giri3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 dub-sar iti a2-ki-ti mu szu-suen [lugal uri5-ma-ke4 ma-da za-ab]-sza-li[ mu-hul] gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1007. 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 50-03-093 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P324793). 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.