Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0831
About this tablet
This is a small administrative receipt from Garšana, one of the Ur III state's textile-producing estates in southern Mesopotamia, dated to around 2000 BCE. It records a quantity of high-quality 'mah' garments, their combined weight given in talents and minas, transferred from an official named Ili-uzranni and conveyed by an intermediary named Ili-lī-... Such tablets are part of the enormous bureaucratic apparatus that tracked textile production and distribution at Garšana, a site whose archive has become a key source for understanding Ur III craft economies and women's administrative roles.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A batch of fine 'mah' garments belonging to Habum is recorded, weighing a half-talent and fifteen and a third minas in total, with a shortfall of one unit against the expected figure. The goods came from Ili-uzranni. The next lines are broken, but the text picks up with a note that they were received, carried by an official named Ili-lī-... The record is dated to the month of ki-siki-Ninazu; the year name and the remaining lines are lost to damage.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[n] mah-garments: Habum. Their weight: 1/2 talent (and) 15 1/3 mina, its deficit being 1 (unit) [shekel(?)]. From Ili-uzranni [...] [received (šu ba-ti)]. Via Ili-lī-... Month: ki-siki-Ninazu. Year: [...] [...]
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
[n] tug2-mah [ha]-bu-um# ki#-la2-bi 1/2(asz) [gu2] 1(u) 5(disz) 1/3(disz) ma-na# i3 la2 1(disz)-a-ni ki i3-li2-[uz-ra-ni]-ta# [...] [szu ba?-ti] giri3# i3-li2-li2-x [iti ki]-siki# nin-a-zu [mu ...] [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0831. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-08-014 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323439). 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.