Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0683
About this tablet
This is a small administrative receipt from Garšana, an Ur III–period agricultural and craft estate in southern Mesopotamia, dated to the reign of King Šulgi. It records that a man named Puzur-akum — identified as a fuller (a cloth-finisher/launderer) — took delivery of a single finished garment from someone called Aštaqarta, with the transaction dated by month and year-name and validated by a seal naming Šu-Kabta, a well-attested overseer of the Garšana textile and craft workshops. Thousands of such day-to-day receipts survive from Garšana's archive, giving historians an extraordinarily detailed picture of how a large Ur III estate tracked its textiles, workers, and officials.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One finished šagadu-garment was handed over from Aštaqarta to Puzur-akum, who signed for it as received. The transaction is dated to the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year the great ceremonial barge was caulked — a standard Ur III year-name under King Šulgi. The tablet was then sealed, with the seal legend naming Šu-Kabta as the overseeing authority, and identifying Azu, son of Naram-ili, alongside Puzur-akum the fuller, who is described as Šu-Kabta's servant.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 finished šagadu-garment (tug2 sza3-ga-du3, "du"-quality) — from Aštaqarta, Puzur-akum received. Month: “festival of Šulgi” (iti ezem-Šulgi). Year: “the great magur-boat was caulked” (mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-ab-du8). (Seal legend:) Šu-Kabta — Azu, son of Naram-ili; Puzur-akum, the fuller, is your servant.
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(disz) tug2 sza3-ga-du3 du ki asz-ta2-qar-ta puzur4-a-ku-um szu ba-ti iti ezem-szul-gi mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-ab-du8 szu-kab2-ta a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 puzur4-a-ku-um lu2 azlag2 ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0683. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-06-013 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322602). 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.