Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0467
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, a provincial center that supplied labor and goods to the Ur III state around the reign of Šu-Sin. It records a disbursement of barley — part of it converted at a fixed flour-yield rate — issued as wages for a crew of female mill-workers (geme2 kikken2), a very common category of dependent laborer in these estate records. A man named Malik-bani, likely an overseer or agent, received the grain on their behalf from an official named Iškur-illat. Thousands of such texts survive from Garšana, together forming a remarkably detailed picture of daily labor management on a Mesopotamian agricultural estate four thousand years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a receipt: 20 gur of barley were on the books, and 1 gur 5 ban2 of it was paid out — converted at a rate of 5 sila3 of fine flour per unit — to cover the wages of the female mill workers. The grain came from Iškur-illat, and a man named Malik-bani signed for it (his name is partly restored due to damage on the tablet). The record is dated to the month called "Harvest," in the year after "the land of Zabšali was destroyed" — a year-name that ancient scribes used instead of numbered years, referencing a known military campaign of the reign of Šu-Sin.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine20 gur barley; 1 gur 5 ban2 [of it] disbursed, at the rate of 5 sila3 of fine (sig15) flour [per gur], as the wages of the female mill-workers, from Iškur-illat, [Malik-ba]ni [received]. Month: "Harvest" (Sze-sag11-ku5), Year following: "the land of Zabšali was destroyed."
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
2(u) sze gur 1(asz) 5(ban2) gur ba-na 5(disz) sila3 zi3 sig15-ta a2 geme2 kikken2-sze3 ki iszkur-illat-ta [ma-lik-ba]-ni#? [szu ba-ti] iti sze-sag11-ku5 mu us2-sa ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0467. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 50-03-035 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P324735). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-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.