Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0373
About this tablet
This is an Ur III period administrative tablet from the estate archive of Garšana, a site associated with the household of the lady Simat-Ištaran, wife of the general Šu-Kabta. It is a labor accounting document calculating how many female workers were needed to carry a given quantity of bricks — using the standard rate of 120 bricks per worker per day — along with the barley rations (3 sila3 each) owed to them. The official Šu-Eštar appears to be responsible for or overseeing the operation. Such texts are common at Garšana, where large-scale construction projects required careful bookkeeping of labor and rations.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The tablet tracks a brick-hauling job. Three entries record quantities of bricks — each apparently 720 units, though the details after each number are broken off — followed by a running total of over 7,200. The work was under the responsibility of a man named Šu-Eštar. The text then gives the standard labor formula: each female worker was expected to carry 120 bricks a day, and four such workers were assigned to the job (the rest of that line is lost). Each worker received 3 sila3 of barley as her ration, with a total barley figure now broken away. The final lines label this as 'labor for carrying bricks,' tied to a building whose name is lost in the break.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(gešu) 2(geš2) [...] (= 720 [...]) 1(gešu) 2(geš2) [...] (= 720 [...]) 1(gešu) 2(geš2) [...] (= 720 [...]) 2(šár) [n] (= 7200 [+n], total) Šu-Eštar its length: [n ninda ...] labor of female workers, per one (worker): [2(geš2) bricks each, i.e. 120 bricks] its female workers: 4 [...] barley: 3 sila3 [each] its barley: [n] labor for carrying bricks the house of [...]
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
1(gesz'u) 2(gesz2) [...] 1(gesz'u) 2(gesz2) [...] 1(gesz'u) 2(gesz2) [...] 2(szar2) [n] szu-esz18-dar us2-bi [n ninda ...] a2 geme2 1(disz)-a [2(gesz2) sig4-ta] geme2-bi 4(disz) [...] sze 3(disz) sila3 [...] sze-bi [n] a2 sig4 [ga6-ga2] e2-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0373. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-15-598 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P324604). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.