Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0558
About this tablet
This is a fragment of an Ur III period ration or allotment list from Garšana, a provincial administrative center in southern Mesopotamia known for its well-preserved archive of estate management texts. Each line records a standard quantity — roughly 22 to 25 liters (about two ban2 measures plus a few sila3) — issued to a named individual, most likely workers or dependents receiving grain allotments. The names are mostly Akkadian (Ili-ašranni, Turam-ili, Ingatum), typical of the mixed Sumerian-Akkadian personnel documented at Garšana around 2000 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a payroll-style list: a series of people each received a set amount of grain, about 22 to 25 liters per person. The first entry is broken, missing both the exact amount and the recipient's name. The following people are named — one whose name is only partly preserved (something like 'A-shi...'), then Ili-ashranni, Turam-ili, a person called Ingatum (though that reading isn't fully certain), and three more individuals whose names are cut off by damage (Ga-..., Meza-..., and I-...). The tablet breaks off after this, so we don't know if there was a total or further entries.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1. 2 ban2 2 sila3 [...] (commodity and recipient broken away) 2. 2 ban2 5 sila3 — (for) A-[...]ši-[...] 3. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) Ili-ašranni 4. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) Turam-ili 5. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) Ingatum(?) 6. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) Ga-[...] 7. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) Meza-[...] 8. 2 ban2 5 sila3 <each> — (for) I-[...] (rest of tablet lost)
Our translation engine — Sonnet 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
2(ban2) 2(disz) [sila3 ...] 2(ban2) 5(disz) sila3 a-[(x)]-szi-[...] 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> i3-li2-asz-ra-ni 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> tu-ra-am-i3-li2 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> in-ga-tum#? 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> ga-x-[...] 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> me-za-[...] 2(ban2) 5(disz) <sila3> i3-[...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0558. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-02-023 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323246). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
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.