Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0886
About this tablet
This is a small receipt tablet from the Ur III administrative center of Garšana, recording the handover of six sheep hides. A leatherworker named Ana-ah-ili, son of Sa'aba, received the hides from an official or supplier called Iškur-illat, for use in his craft workshop. The year formula dates the transaction to the year Šu-Suen's forces destroyed the land of Zabšali, one of the securely fixed year-names of the Ur III dynasty, letting us pin this everyday transaction to a precise historical moment around 2040 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Six sheep hides were issued from Iškur-illat's stores and received by the leatherworker Ana-ah-ili, son of Sa'aba. The transaction was recorded in the month of the me-ki-gal festival, in the year that the land of Zabšali was destroyed — a routine supply record from the leatherworking operations at Garšana.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine6 sheep hides, from Iškur-illat, Ana-ah-ili received. Month: "Festival of me-ki-gal" (Garšana calendar), Year: "The land of Zabšali was destroyed." Ana-ah-ili, the leatherworker, son of Sa'aba.
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
6(disz) kusz udu ki iszkur-illat-ta a-na-ah-i3-li2 szu ba-an-ti iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 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, 0886. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-04-021 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322535). 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.