Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0876
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, dated to the reign of Šu-Suen (his third regnal year, when the land of Zabšali was conquered). It records a modest quantity of sheep fat handed over to a leatherworker named Anah-ili, who used tallow to soften and treat hides in his craft — a tiny but concrete glimpse into the supply chains that fed provincial workshops in southern Iraq around 2035 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A receipt: Anah-ili took delivery of 1 5/6 minas of sheep fat, sourced from Iškur-illat. The transaction is dated to the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year the land of Zabšali was destroyed. The document carries the seal of the recipient, identified as Anah-ili the leatherworker, son of Saba.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 5/6 mina of sheep fat (tallow) — from Iškur-illat, Anah-ili received. Month: 'Festival of Šulgi' (iti ezem-šulgi). Year: 'The land of Zabšali was destroyed.' (Seal:) Anah-ili, the leatherworker, son of Saba.
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) 5/6(disz) ma-na i3-udu ki iszkur-illat-ta a-na-ah-i3-li2 szu# ba-an-ti iti ezem-szul-gi mu ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul an-na-ah-i3-li2 aszgab dumu sa2-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0876. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-02-029 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322431). 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.